Alright so let's play out a teachers set up vs say an accountant. Nothing special nothing unique.

I'll use myself and my wife since I know the numbers.

1st thing to understand is that there are not well paying or even mildly reasonable jobs that are available for 2 months in the middle of the summer. So even in some magical world where they don't have planning and other shit to do to get ready in the summer at most you're earning what? $600/week for 8 weeks? So $5k for the summer to try to work?

2. I made $92k as an accountant in year 4. My wife as a teacher can NEVER reach that number even with a masters and 30 extra credits. Not after 25 years of teaching . I made that with no masters no CPA just 120 college credits. Her regular teaching degree took more.

3. Even doing the math on pension to count her pension salary and add it over her work salary annually and even if you grossed up her salary for 10/12 months ( which is nonsense but whatever) she will never come close to the earning power of someone with a college degree like hers.

This doesn't even consider the shit teachers are put through and the dozens of hours outside the classroom they do that isn't counted.