PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Educators and social activists gathered at West Chester University’s Philadelphia campus Saturday to talk about ways for teachers to address the crushing debt that many of them face.
A 2021 report from the National Education Association found that nearly half of all teachers took out student loans, and that they owe an average of $59,000.
That’s the situation Brian Gallagher finds himself in. Gallagher, 35, a teacher at Mount Airy’s Lingelbach Elementary School is saddled with $50,000 in debt.
“In addition to my wife’s, who also has her master’s degree and has over $150,000 in student loan debt, which is really kind of an abstract number to us as people that have worked full time since we were 18 and are still living paycheck to paycheck,” Gallagher said.
Gallagher tells his sixth, seventh and eighth grade students not to seek a college education just because they feel they need to.
“I would never tell my students not to go to college, of course, but I’m more intentional with how I speak to them about it,” he explained.
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“Like, if you want a specific job that you need a college degree, certainly do it. But don’t go just because you feel that you have to, that it’s the logical next step.
He said he knows many people that went to school for four years and got a degree, but that doesn't really mean anything as far as what they want to do with their lives.
“And now they're working in restaurants, and they've got 50 grand in debt and are sort of trapped in that renter cycle – can't buy a home, can't buy a car, can't do a lot of things that they might want to do because they have to pay so much in student loans every month."
The study backed these claims, finding that more than a third of younger educators’ debt has affected their ability to buy a home. Additionally, many older educators are also struggling, as more than a quarter of them – aged 61 and up – still haven’t paid off their student debt. Of those, more than a third owe at least $45,000, making it difficult to save for retirement.
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