[geeks] Teachers

Doug McLaren dougmc at frenzied.us
Wed Sep 5 12:36:40 CDT 2007


On Wed, Sep 05, 2007 at 12:16:48PM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:

| >First year teachers get just under $40k/year.
| >Forty year teachers get $60,390/year.
| >
| >That's pretty sad that forty years of experience only gets you a 50%
| >raise.  I've only been in the IT industry for 16 years or so, and my
| >pay has gone up by a factor of six or so since I started.
| 
| Not so fast!
| 
| A teacher with 40 years exp. started out making what the market
| would bear 40 years ago (1967), which might have been closer to
| $10K, meaning thier salary has gone up by a similar factor of six
| (in my imaginary example), and a teacher starting out today is (I'm
| pretty certain) will earn a number much closer to $249K/year in the
| year 2047, but I suspect a home will cost $1B by then ;^)

OK, so I forgot inflation.  Well, I didn't forget it, but I didn't
explicitly mention it.

How much do entry level sysadmins get now?  $12/hr?  OK, I found one
on CL for $14/hr, though they do say two years experience (and entry
level in the same post?  Odd.)  $14/hr seems a bit high, but let's go
with it.

So it's only a factor of three.  Give me another 24 years, and perhaps
I'll be making a factor of six more than people just entering the
field. (Probably not though -- I don't see myself in management, ever,
and while there's a few promotions I could still get without going
management, the pay increases are modest.)

Compared to teachers, who will probably still get only 50% more than
their newly starting peers after forty years.  Of course, teachers
have to have a degree, so that skews things a little bit, but I had a
degree shortly after I started too and while it wasn't required for my
job, it didn't hurt.

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us       Don't hit the keys so hard -- it hurts.



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