31-year-old teacher quit her job. Now she works at Costco—and boosted her income by 50%: ‘I've never been happier' (these are not feel good stories, this is sad)

25 years ago in my suburban Chicago public high school district, my stats teacher brought out the teacher pay schedule for us to play with.

There were six columns:

Bachelors, bachelors+30, bachelors+60 Masters, masters+30, masters+60

The +30 or +60 refer to credit hours of additional college coursework

Each row showed the number of years of experience.

In 1998, the upper-left (fresh out of college, no experience) salary was around $38,500 or something.

The bottom right (masters+60 or doctorate, and 30 or 35 years of experience [I forget]) was $151,000. And they got a great pension (fatter than what teachers in IL starting now will get).

You also got a small multiplier for each extra curricular you ran.

We had mostly excellent teachers as a result. Couple of duds too, but that's life. 70+% of graduating seniors went to college of some kind within two years. I believe I went to a good school.

But this is what happens when you fund schools through property taxes: the good neighborhoods get good schools, and it propels a virtuous cycle. The bad neighborhoods get bad schools, and they just spiral downward. It's a dumb way to fund education.

I see it as part of the contract between the government and the people. All citizens are asked to help plant trees they won't get to enjoy the shade of.

It is a tough sell to place even more tax burden on people who will never realize the benefits.

But you will. We all benefit from a well-educated society. A poorly educated workforce isn't competitive with one that is well-educated, and they attract employers with jobs that can take advantage of them. They provide the work for good-paying jobs and drive the economy we're growing old in and hopefully retiring from someday.

Public education benefits everyone, not just the children.

I would say we need to do a full assessment of where our tax dollars are going. I feel we could find a lot of money to put towards the items that matter by cutting out government ineptitude.

You’re ignoring the massive amount of students on IEPs who require special services, as well as the fact that online education requires family support and motivation.

Seattle was just TFA's literal job location.

You could move to Oklahoma City or Tulsa or something. If you can't save a few grand to move anywhere whatsoever i'd suggest getting a second job a couple nights a week or over the summer during break to make enough to do so. It's your livelihood anyway.

Today: What do you do when you need a new car to get to work and yours stops working from age? give up? walk many miles to work? assume the fetal position until death? I promise there is a possible way in this world to have enough to relocate, the only question is what you're willing to sacrifice to get it done. My wife lived on rice and beans for months while she saved up enough to afford tuition which ultimately made her income go from a few hundred dollars a month in another country to a little over a thousand. She learned English on her own and got a job that was a two hour commute from her home and made even more money. Now she makes over double what you do. I'm not saying it's easy, i'm not saying it's fair, i'm just saying it's possible.