A stable job in Eugene Oregon that paid 30k (in the 70's) even if you spend 40k to get a degree to get the job is quite a lot. This guy probably bought into a housing market where you could buy a house at 1/20th of the cost today, and he also would never feared layoffs (during the oil crisis years) he would lose his job, and was also able to be a bit more aggressive when making long term financial decisions. These sob stories about teachers bring so underpaid compared to their peers is a joke, a stable 50k a year job in this city is a whole lot more than most have.  And the supposed percentage he "lost" by working for the lowly school district is, by far, made up by the stability of knowing that he probably would never get fired or his wages would not get cut. Letters like this only demonstrate the disconnectedness government workers have from the real world.