Priced out: The growing challenge of teacher pay and housing costs

Imagine that you are training for a marathon. Midway through your preparation, the organizing committee announces that the race will be 30 miles instead of the standard 26.2. A challenging, yet manageable, adjustment. On race day, you learn that the distance has again been increased, this time to 40 miles. Though unprepared, you begin running and hope for the best. As you hit the 10-mile marker, the distance increases a third time—to 60 miles. At this point, you realize your goal of finishing the race is unattainable and you make a graceful exit. This ever-changing finish line mirrors what teachers face with housing affordability. While salaries increase over time, dramatic changes in the housing market have left many educators in an unwinnable race for one of our most basic needs: an affordable place to live.

It is imperative that teachers can afford to live in the communities they serve. Recent research found that teachers with long commutes are more likely to leave the district, be absent from work, and receive lower observation scores than those who live closer.¹ To retain a high-quality teaching staff, it is in districts’ best interest to pay teachers enough to afford housing reasonably close to where they teach. Yet given skyrocketing housing costs, district leaders are left wondering where the money will come from.

NCTQ’s 2023 District Trendline on housing affordability and teacher salaries identified the most and least affordable school districts for novice teachers to rent or buy homes. To build on this research, we examined 72 large, urban districts to answer the following research questions:²

1. Have novice teacher salaries kept pace with increases in housing costs since 2019?³
2. Can novice teachers afford to rent where they teach? Has rental affordability changed since 2019?
3. Is homeownership affordable for teachers?

Between 2019 and 2025, housing costs increased by 47–51% on average, far outpacing the average 24% growth in beginning teacher salaries.

Figure 1 reveals how dramatically beginning teacher salaries have struggled to keep up with housing costs on average since 2019.⁴ The percentage growth in home prices⁵ and percentage growth in one-bedroom rental costs⁶ have consistently and dramatically outpaced beginning teacher salary growth and general inflation. This graph illustrates the widening gap between housing costs and beginning teacher salaries since 2019. Housing affordability was already challenging for teachers before 2019, meaning that these growing disparities exacerbated an existing problem.

While inflation has increased by about 26% since 2019, the housing market tells a more alarming story.⁷ Home prices jumped dramatically between 2021 and 2022, while rental costs shot up the following year with little sign of slowing. By 2025, the cumulative growth in home prices skyrocketed to about 47% and rental costs leaped to about 51% on average. Meanwhile, beginning teacher salaries have only grown half as much, by 24% on average. This means that although salaries have almost kept pace with inflation, there is a widening gap between income and housing affordability.

Our analysis found that there is some regional variation, but not much. The overall trend is quite clear: Despite increasing salaries, beginning teachers have less and less purchasing power in the housing market.

Even so, there are some exceptions, including Albuquerque Public Schools (NM) and Detroit Public Schools Community District (MI). Spurred by state-mandated salary increases, beginning teachers in Albuquerque saw nearly 60% salary growth since 2019. This increase outpaced the area’s 51% rise in rental prices and fell just short of matching the 65% increase in housing prices. The steepest increase occurred in 2022–23, when Albuquerque raised starting teacher salaries, regardless of degree attainment, by about $9,000.

Detroit provides another example of salary adjustments keeping pace with housing market growth. While rental costs and home prices grew in line with national averages, by approximately 45% and 50%, respectively, increases in beginning teacher salaries have outpaced the nation. Beginning teachers with master’s degrees in Detroit have experienced salary growth approaching 50% since 2019, while those with bachelor’s degrees have experienced approximately 42% salary growth. The bulk of this occurred in 2020–21 when the district completely revamped how it pays teachers, increasing salaries by $12,500 and $17,800 for teachers with master’s degrees and bachelor’s degrees, respectively.

Five years into their careers, teachers’ salaries don’t stretch as far in the housing market as when they started teaching.

While few people expect to buy a house in their first year of working, many people are looking to buy their first home by five years into a career. And though it is common for new professionals to split rent with a roommate, it is reasonable to expect that a professional can independently afford an apartment after five years of working. Though teachers typically earn higher salaries with each additional year on the job, housing costs have risen so sharply that these expectations have become less achievable.

Figure 2 shows the salary trajectory for the 2019 teacher cohort in our sample (i.e., teachers who began teaching in 2018–19 and reached five years of experience by 2023–24).⁸ From 2019 to 2024, we find that home purchase prices and rental costs increased by an average of 44% and 42%, respectively.⁹ During the same period, the 2019 teacher cohort experienced an average 34–35% salary increase, outpacing the 23% growth in inflation. (This salary increase is due to pay increases associated with more years of experience, as well as districts’ additional salary increases). Despite this growth, it still failed to keep pace with the housing market. Consequently, teachers who started in 2019 in our sample districts lost purchasing power for buying or renting a home compared to when they began teaching.

New teachers can’t afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment in about half of the districts in our sample, regardless of whether or not they hold a master’s degree.

For the rental market, we define an unaffordable district as one in which one-bedroom rental costs exceed 30% of an individual’s salary.¹⁰ Given our findings thus far, it is unsurprising that the number of unaffordable districts in our sample has grown substantially in recent years.

For teachers with 10 years of experience: In 2019, there were no unaffordable districts for teachers with a master’s degree and just two unaffordable districts for those with a bachelor’s degree. Fast forward to 2025 and those counts have catapulted to 8 and 18 unaffordable districts, respectively, a harsh reality for experienced teachers.

For beginning teachers: In 2019 there were 18 unaffordable districts for teachers with bachelor’s degrees and 11 for those with master’s degrees. Now there are 39 and 34 unaffordable districts for beginning teachers with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively. That’s roughly half of our study sample.

This year, rent for a one-bedroom unit costs over 40% of beginning, bachelor-degree-holding teacher salaries in 10 districts, with four surpassing 45%. For beginning, master-degree-holding teachers, San Diego Unified School District (CA) remains the most unaffordable district (45%) and there are four more in which rent constitutes over 40% of salaries.

Homeownership is increasingly unrealistic for teachers.

The picture is even more grim when examining the affordability of purchasing a home—a milestone for adults seeking long-term financial stability, community belonging, and the opportunity to build generational wealth. In essence, the American Dream.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals that teachers with a master’s degree would need an average of 13 years to save for a 20% down payment in their region, while those with bachelor’s degrees would require an average of 14 years.¹¹ Yet even these daunting figures likely underestimate the actual time needed, considering high interest rates and quickly climbing home prices. This also assumes that the teacher can manage to set aside 10% of their salary annually, an increasingly unrealistic expectation given the steep rise in rental costs they’re already struggling to afford. Finally, though a 20% down payment is the long-accepted expectation, recent research by Zillow found that in major metropolitan areas, “a home buyer making the median income needs to put down $127,750, or 35.4%,” to comfortably afford the total monthly payments.

Much like the dramatic increase in districts with unaffordable rental costs, we also find a rise in districts that are unaffordable in terms of homeowners’ monthly housing payments. In this context, we redefine unaffordable districts as those in which total monthly housing payments (mortgage, insurance, taxes, etc.) exceed 30% of a teacher’s salary. Under this definition of affordability for home ownership, 2019 saw many more unaffordable districts than were found in the rental analysis. Total monthly payment data is not available for 16 districts in our sample, so this analysis includes 56 large urban districts.¹²

For teachers with 10 years of experience: In 2019, 29 districts were unaffordable for those with a bachelor’s degree and 22 for those with a master’s degree. By 2025, these numbers climbed to 47 and 44 districts, respectively.

For beginning teachers: In 2019, 46 districts were unaffordable for those with a bachelor’s degree and 41 for those with a master’s. By 2025, 54 districts were unaffordable regardless of degree attainment.

These numbers show a concerning trend: The teachers we entrust with educating our nation’s youth face growing financial instability.

What are cash-strapped districts, which likely already face layoffs, to do? In Arkansas, the Bentonville Teacher Homes project is an example of a collaborative and innovative effort providing income-eligible Bentonville Schools teachers with affordable housing that includes rental units and a unique home ownership model to set teachers on the path to realistic home ownership. Fairfax County Public Schools (VA), one of the most rent-burdened districts in our sample, partners with the Fairfax County Redevelopment & Housing Authority and the Fairfax County Department of Housing & Community Development to provide several affordable housing options for which teachers and other public service professionals are eligible. Miami-Dade County Public Schools (FL), another one of the most rent-burdened districts in our sample, is partnering with the Miami-Dade County Public Housing & Community Development department to develop affordable housing inside a new middle school building.

Recent research examining trends over the past 50 years indicates that the teaching profession is experiencing significant challenges, with measures of prestige, attractiveness, and job satisfaction at their lowest levels.¹³ While several dynamic factors contribute to this decline, teacher pay remains a chief concern. Despite the popular notion that teaching is “a calling,” it is still a profession that requires fair and competitive compensation. Teachers, like all of us, have financial responsibilities; they must support themselves and their families. Until all teachers can reliably afford basic necessities like housing, the challenges of attracting and retaining a diverse, high-quality teacher workforce will likely persist.