Young adults and teenagers today recognize that with evolving societal structures and economic landscapes, they need to chase careers that secure them with enough money to live happily and not be mentally exhausted after every day.
What happens when an individual pursues an occupation that follows their passion, but only to recognize later that it involves less pay, burnout, and problems with respect to the career take over?
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in September 2024, the interest in teaching as a profession among incoming college students, prospective teachers earning a teaching license, and educators’ overall job satisfaction have all reached historic lows between 2010 and 2023.
“Teachers are viewed much less prestigiously than they were in the past,” according to the bureau. They identified low wages, rising college costs, weakening unions, and reduced teacher freedoms as some potential reasons for the lack of people becoming educators.
Sophomore Molly Niewenhous-Ryan said she would like to be an elementary teacher in the future.
“The only thing that holds me back is the low pay I would receive,” Niewenhous-Ryan said, “but if I truly enjoy teaching then I won’t mind.”
Niewenhous-Ryan went on to say that the main reason she wants to be a teacher is because she wants to make an impact on potential students’ lives just like her former teachers have with her.
“My teachers have shaped me into who I am academically and as a person in some ways. I would want to help future children like my teachers did with me,” Niewenhous-Ryan said.
The Walton Family Foundation revealed in an article on March 2, 2026 that 71% of U.S. teachers hold at least one second job. Nearly one in three teachers reported having a second job unrelated to teaching.
American Sign Language teacher Lori Peters originally did not want to teach, let alone the subject being ASL.
What made her want to teach was her high school ASL teacher at Westerville North. When she went to Columbus State Community College that same teacher became the coordinator of the interpreting program at the college, and when she felt Peters was ready, asked her to teach a class.
“I never thought I would be qualified enough,” Peters said. “Deaf people deserve the space to be the teachers of their own language.”
Peters also owns an interpreting business named StageHands where she and other interpreters use American Sign Language to convey what is happening in live performances or events.
“I did want to become a teacher once,” Junior Janele MacClements said. “I wanted to have a lasting impact on kids like my fourth grade teacher did with me and my classmates.”
What drew her away from teaching was the idea of disciplining children and seeming mean to them.
The idea of wanting to do something with children and her love for the health field has influenced her decision to become a NICU nurse. “Whichever career I go into, I want to make a lasting impact on peoples’ lives,” MacClements said.
In April 2025, neaToday published an article about teacher burnout causes. They wrote that in November 2024 Connecticut Educators Association asked what the main causes of burnout were, and they concluded that student/discipline first, followed by insufficient pay, with lack of respect.
As a man who has always wanted to be in education as a math teacher and is the former head wrestling coach, George Crooks said that his one complaint about teaching is how he will never understand how any student does not at least attempt their best everyday.
“When a student does not try it makes me wonder what happened in their lives to make them that way,” Crooks said.
The future of teaching balances a passion for impact against the realities of low pay and burnout, forcing many to abandon the profession. To ensure survival, the inspiration that draws educators must be supported by improved working conditions.