I would have entirely left the state if PA did not fund any R1 Universities. West Chester is the only PASSHE school that's not a total joke.

An Oklahoma circuit court judge ruled the federal prohibition of guns with marijuana use unconstitutional. This happened about a month ago. I don't know if the DOJ appealed the ruling or not but that's probably what has sparked state level interest in this law.

The starting salaries are low, the reality is many suburban teachers have golden handcuffs and a lot of tenure, so they are more focused on negotiating the upper end of pay bands than focusing on starting salaries.

The unfortunate reality is many teachers get their start in less competitive crapola school districts like the Philly SD and then run for the hills of suburbia as soon as they have some experience.

You can find many total collective bargaining agreement easily online and see the pay bands. Most teachers with decent tenure and those with advanced qualifications pull in close to six figs or over it.

That's the starting salary for the lowest level teaching job there is.

You can find the total collective bargaining agreement easily online and see the pay bands. Most teachers at the high school level have a decent tenure built up and pull in close to $90k. The pay scale tops out at $111k for advanced degree holders with tenure.

Teachers in my lower bucks district were making $70 - 90k at the high school level, some in the six figs, about ten years ago.

Teachers in the PA Philly burbs generally make good money.

I said nothing about actively pissing off the judge lol. Yes, they can choose how strict the punishment is. That strictness cannot be greater than what it would be to just sign the ticket and turn it in, unless you create some type of chaos in the courtroom.

I have experience with this. I've self represented with a 15 over charge I was obviously guilty of, got it knocked down to a 5 - 10. Generally you talk to the cop before the hearing and that's pretty much the end of it.

I've also been party to a multiple car accident that involved a roll-over. I hired representation in that case despite being "guilty by the book" and had everything thrown out other than a small, no-point fine. The judge called me in to the courtroom to give a verbal beating and felt satisfied after that.

This is horrible advice. There is literally no way the court can do some sort of weird retaliation because you decided to have a hearing. We kind of have a bill of rights my man.

Because he is innocent until proven guilty and has the right to seek representation.

The good reason to not bother fighting it is that he won't receive any points in PA for the ticket. The good reason to fight the ticket is that his auto insurance policy will not be happy to discover such an aggressive speeding ticket.

At the very least, I think it is worth going to court to seek a plea deal with the officer. No need to get a lawyer. Usually they are willing to knock the speeding ticket down a bracket. From what I can see NJ has a 1 - 15 over category, a 15 - 29 category, and a 30+ category. It looks like the officer wrote 94 in a 65 mainly to keep it below the 30+ speeding offense. There is a decent chance as a first time offender that the ticket can be plead down to 1 - 15 over which will look way better for insurance.

Can I ask why you'd bother applying to Temple? Unless you're in admin academia pays absolute garbage.

Graduate researchers quite often put in 60 hour weeks and Temple pays a whopping $19.5k for this. I don't even know how that keeps someone off the streets.

The minimum wage was last raised in July 2009 at $7.25/hr. If you took a 40 hour work week and inflation adjusted it to today, it's almost $21k. Temple is an absolute joke.

Everyone knows NIMBYism keeps the cost of living down and builds wealth.

Norristown has a reputation as a shithole, and it kind of is, but also not. It was a poor and crime riddled shithole 10 - 15 years ago and now it is mostly just poor.

https://www.norristown.org/246/Crime-Data

Violent crime has decreased by about 50% in the last decade, though upticked slightly with the national crime wave post pandemic. It has held up a lot better than Philly has. If I have to attribute the drop in crime to anything, Norristown has seen a large Hispanic immigration wave over this period that are working class and family-oriented.

Overall as far as crime goes, it is very block by block. Some areas you would definitely feel uncomfortable being out and about late at night. Other areas have a good feel to it. My impression is the area you're looking is a better area, but I would look into crime statistics carefully.

Some pro's, the location is great, as I'm sure you're aware. It's basically the only working class area in the region that has both regional rail access to Philly as well as close access to a huge job hub at KOP. Anything else in the area that ticks both those boxes is expensive. The borough itself has some amazing bones and unrealized potential, however there are several reasons why I think this potential stays unrealized.

Some cons: I believe Norristown borough has both higher property taxes and a higher wage tax than the surrounding area. So you should look into that. Montgomery County in all its wisdom has stuck every single social service possible in Norristown which has basically guaranteed it to be an isolated bubble of armpit-stank forever. The school district is also horrible. Both those factors along with high taxes will limit any upside potential to your real estate.

Overall I'd say if you can do better than Norristown, then I would do better. But at the same time if it's all you can reasonably afford and you buy in a safer area I don't think you're irredeemably doomed by any means.

This is BS. Plenty of destitute people have managed to move thousands of miles throughout history in huge migration waves. Today's poor don't move because they are subsidized enough to stay comfortably in place, even if the conditions aren't great.

Yes, that's what happens when people use more than is produced.