Do the math: High student debt = teacher shortage

By Ternesha Burroughs

When I first started teaching, I was making $29,000 a year. Every morning on my route to work I passed a KFC with a sign out: They were hiring assistant managers for $32,000 — $3,000 more than what I was making at the time. I could have quit then, in all honesty. Smelling like fried chicken didn’t seem so bad.

But I was committed. I’d already made the decision to become a high school math teacher. I love mathematics and I love my job. I love the lightbulb moments when a student finally understands the Pythagorean theorem or quadratic equations.

I wasn’t always like this. I started out thinking I wanted to be an engineer, like my dad. That would be a stable career, I thought, with a good salary. But during my first year of college at the University of Minnesota, I got a position as a teaching assistant in UM’s college within a college, where I helped underprepared students learn math. My professor told me I really had a gift for explaining math in laypeople’s terms — and he suggested I consider teaching.

I love the lightbulb moments when a student finally understands the Pythagorean theorem or quadratic equations.

My first reaction was something like, “nope.” I didn’t want to be in a profession that paid so poorly. But my professor told me about the teacher loan forgiveness program and other student debt relief opportunities for people who work in Title I schools and in high-demand fields like mathematics. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re gonna be fine.”

So the next year, I volunteered at an alternative school for unhoused youth, to see what teaching might be like, and I loved every minute of it. “This is what I want to do with my life,” I thought. I changed my major and got into teaching.

Rough going

I kept thinking my student loans would resolve, just as my professor told me they would. I did all the right things, tracking payments, following the advice of my loan servicers. But they misled me.

I had about $70,000 in debt after graduation; my starting salary was $29,000. My first payments started out around $50 or $60 a month, but about six years and a lot of bad advice later, they went up to $400 a month. Whenever I called my loan representatives for a more reasonable payment, they’d give me three choices, sometimes involving forbearance or deferral; I always chose the cheapest one, because that’s what I could afford.

My first payments started out around $50 or $60 a month, but about six years and a lot of bad advice later, they went up to $400 a month.

I was so hopeful when Public Service Loan Forgiveness came out — the program that relieves all your debt if you are working in a public service job (like teaching) and have made 10 years’ worth of loan payments. I enrolled, thinking I’d be home free in 10 years, but the loan servicer told me the plan I’d been paying into didn’t count toward PSLF.

I am so grateful to my union for the years of work — including lawsuits and advocacy — that finally fixed many of the PSLF problems. With their help, I finally got student debt relief.

It’s not just me

Tracking all this, over so many years, was exhausting. Here’s one way to explain it: When I teach my high school students a complicated math problem that takes up the whole page, they say, “That’s doing too much.” When I think about my loan journey, it’s doing too much.

I finally resolved my debt, and let me tell you, I am thrilled. But I am still concerned about the profession. What about the young teachers who are fresh out of college, on a starting salary? Having to pay off student loans with a measly paycheck is a huge disincentive for becoming a teacher.

“I’m not interested in being poor,” friends tell me when they talk about wanting to be teachers. How many other potential teachers are we losing because of high loan payments and low salaries?

In fact, some of my friends who majored in engineering would love to have been teachers and even talked about teaching after they retire, but for now they opted out. “I’m not interested in being poor,” they tell me. How many other potential teachers are we losing because of high loan payments and low salaries? There are already so few Black teachers like me: At one point I was the only Black math teacher in the entire district. It was the loneliest year of my career. But more importantly, we have so many Black and brown children, and they need more Black and brown teachers in their schools.

My union has been working hard to fix at least part of this picture — in addition to the help I got resolving my student debt, my local just finalized a contract that guarantees $50,000 for beginning teachers, a significant bump in salary.

If I am proving to you, year after year, that I am still teaching, I am still in the classroom, still changing lives and inspiring young people, you should cancel my loans.

We are proud of that accomplishment, and we hope it will make a big difference in recruiting new teachers — and addressing the teacher shortage. Because it was hard to convince somebody to work for so much less when they’d just spent so much more earning their license. This kind of debt is so limiting, in so many ways. For example, when you leave college you kind of expect to have a place of your own, but on a low salary you still have to have roommates just to make ends meet.

Here’s my thinking: If I’m willing to dedicate my career to service, I need some reciprocity. If I am proving to you, year after year, that I am still teaching, I am still in the classroom, still changing lives and inspiring young people, you should cancel my loans.

Don’t make it so difficult for people who enjoy the profession. Just relieve their debt, and let’s move forward.

Ternesha Burroughs is a high school math teacher in the Osseo Area Schools in Hennepin County, just outside Minneapolis. She has taught middle school and high school math at Title I schools for most of her career and is currently serving as president of her union, Education Minnesota-OSSEO Local 1212. In March, she shared her story at a congressional briefing about teacher shortages and posed for us at the Capitol building, above.

If you want to read more stories about AFT members and their lives, sign up to receive our e-newsletters.