teaching as a career change – retirement planning?
I am in my early 30s and I am considering going to graduate school to teach secondary education. I think I would really enjoy being a history teacher. I like working with the middle and high school age group and I am passionate about history.
One of the biggest things holding me back is the fear of not being able to plan for retirement. I don’t expect to retire "early" or to be wealthy but I would rather not spend my later years in poverty or be working till I drop dead either. I am 33 and it will likely take me about 4 years to work my way through grad school part time, complete student teaching assignments, etc. Therefore in order to teach for the 30 years one needs to be eligible for a decent teacher’s retirement plan I would have to teach past the age of 65, which is the standard retirement age.
Another issue is that I live in MA currently, but I also may be moving at some point to CA due to family situations. I have read that many states let you "buy credits" towards adding the years you worked in one state on to the total number of years accumulated towards retirement in the other state, but it seems to be prohibitively expensive (,000-10,000 to purchase just one year of credit, and what if I had to purchase 5 years or so? It seems like a lot of money to be docked for years that you have already worked, just in a different state. On a teacher’s salary, I’m not sure that I will have the thousands of dollars saved up to do that.)
The other thing that scares me is that I have worked in the private sector since I was 18, paying into social security. I have read that because of the Windfall Elimination Provision act, teachers in MA and CA are not part of the social security system, so not only would I lose most of my SS benefit but I will likely not get any kind of decent teacher retirement either, as I am coming later in life to the profession.
Thoughts? Advice? I think I would really enjoy teaching but I don’t want to struggle and live in hardship when I am older. I was thinking maybe I could save some extra money in an IRA or something…but thinking realistically, teachers don’t exactly have a lot of extra money lying around. I will already be contributing heavily to the mandatory retirement plan (which I hear has a rather low rate of return compared to traditional 401K and IRA options) and I still need to pay my bills, and for grad school.
Again, I’m not "in it for the money." I realize that I will never be wealthy as a teacher and I don’t care. I don’t make a lot of money now, so it’s not like I’m leaving a big fat paycheck to go into education. I love history and I think I would truly enjoy teaching. I just don’t want to be dirt poor living on welfare when I am older. Should the retirement problem get in the way of my decision? Should I go with my calling and hope things somehow "work themselves out"…or should I just give up the thought and stay in the private sector with a normal 401k and the promise of a social security that may or may not be there in 30 years?
Any advice from career changers to teaching or other teachers would be welcome. I know I’m young to be so worried about retirement but it seems so scary!
Filed under: Retirement Planning
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Everybody needs young teachers and that too unmarried, working past retirement is not a possibility because of this obsession of the people, though ripe with experience retired people should languish in loneliness or stay at home with grand children.
Generally speaking, State teacher Pensions are very good, and you should be able to retire in your mid 60s without any problem. Your retirement may be better than most of your friends, as State pensions will still be around, even after everyone elses 401K is valueless.