Re:Basic premise (Score 1)

I spent 13 years in academia...Lemme tell you, in many areas of the country, teachers' salaries are severely depressed. In Florida, a grade school teacher will start at $23K. One lady, after 28 years of teaching middle school, finally broke 40K. On the college level--one of the larger junior colleges only wanted to pay new hires (with Masters) $28K. We literally had one teaching position in CompSci open for almost *3* years because we'd make an offer to an applicant and they'd LAUGH.

Then there was the constant hassle of dealing with budget cuts, or rather lack of a budget, the shrinking state funds, plus the never ending quest for FTE (Full-Time Equivalents) in order to get matching funds. I saw some of the best teachers forced to retire because of budget cuts.

So...academia is not necessarily a refuge. With the squeeze on state funding, schools and colleges are being forced to tighten their belts.