That's great! Why not just pay her more so she can pay off her loans herself?

I know the reason: The union pay scale that pays lousy old teachers much more than young good ones is politically untouchable.

I just don't like that kind of backdoor policymaking. For one thing, it doesn't incentivize universities to offer more affordable educations, since people like your friend become price-insensitive.

>The union pay scale that pays lousy old teachers much more than young good ones is politically untouchable.

I think that is greatly simplifying a complicated problem. There are many reasons a teacher cannot get paid more in a low income school. They may be limited by the local government entity (state or municipality) or the environment may be very difficult. It can become equally politically problematic to adjust the payscale for low income schools as it can to incentivize working there.

>For one thing, it doesn't incentivize universities to offer more affordable educations, since people like your friend become price-insensitive.

Everyone who gets a college education is price insensitive and it has everything to do with loans, but likely little to do with the public service incentive. As long as loans are available and assistance is not, universities (most of which are public) will not have incentive to offer affordable educations. It's a serious problem, but one that has more to do with a culture of "Get an education and get a great job, even if you major in philosophy" than with "Be a teacher and we'll give you a break for serving the public good."

It's not "over" simplifying the problem, though. Pay based on seniority is politically untouchable and is not correlated with the true variation of quality in the teaching profession. Lack of correlation with pay and performance is the number one problem with incentivising better talent to apply itself to teaching. The profession looks basically like a ponzi-scheme in that regard (pyramid pay). It is a bizzare that government uses this model of compensation...does anyone know why? It is all throughout the many layered beuracracies...

My wife taught at an inner city school for 5+ years. Pay was competitive and they paid for her masters. Her school loans were just forgiven (around 5k) for doing this. It was a net win for us vs teaching st a suburban school.

She loved it and it worked out great for us, but the education system is a disaster and I am glad she isnt teaching anymore.