Just to start off,

Teaching doesn’t pay poorly in every area of the country.

Relative to the import of the work, I’d say it pays incredibly poorly, but that’s just me! On a cost-benefit level, to society as a whole, they (and the others in your comment) are borderline priceless. Individually though, I’d say they’re getting the raw end of the deal (yes, yes, I know, on a purely financial level, but that is what I’m talking about here after all).

As I submitted this one, I knew I should add an addendum to the post stating essentially what you said re:there being benefits other than financial. But it was a quick, off the cuff financial post, and thought, eh, who reads me after not posting for half a year anyway? Maybe it’ll trigger an angry comment or two…

There is certainly much more to picking a career than the financial ‘benefits’, and those should surely not be nearly as high on a person’s ‘reasons for going into this field’ list as it generally is. That said, to do a cost-benefit analysis, generally a financial measure, definitely needs quantifiable ‘costs’ and quantifiable ‘benefits’ or there’s no way to do one. A passion for the work isn’t a particularly quantifiable trait (though it’s certainly an admirable one).

Teaching doesn’t pay poorly in every area of the country.

People become teachers for reasons other than financial.

There are programs to help teachers reduce or eliminate student loan debt at no cost.

If people used only financial reasons for making their decisions of what to do with their life, there would be no teachers. What would society do then? Also, there would be no firefighters, emergency medical team workers, and a huge list of other professions where the benefits of and the “draw to” working in such professions are some things other than financial.

So your comment that “most teachers must have a poor grasp of cost/benefit analysis” is way off because you don’t really understand what “benefit” really means when there is something other than money involved. And that’s okay, many people don’t understand that. But I have to say that you’re wrong to assume that a “benefit” to you (purely and only financial) is all that is beneficial to someone else.