Upward Communities Research
In a majority of the largest urban districts, a beginning teacher can no longer afford local rent. This report sets out how the gap between salary schedules and housing costs opened, and what the published evidence does and does not establish.
Because housing costs and teacher salaries have moved at different speeds for six years. Between 2019 and 2025, average rents rose about 51% and home prices about 47%, while beginning teacher salaries rose about 24%, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality. General inflation over that period was about 26%, so beginning pay roughly tracked prices while badly lagging housing.
The consequence shows up as a threshold effect rather than a gradual squeeze. NCTQ examined 72 large urban districts and tested whether local rent exceeded 30% of a teacher's salary, the standard federal definition of cost burden. In 2019, rent was unaffordable on that test for beginning teachers with a bachelor's degree in 18 of the 72 districts. By 2025 it was 39 of 72. For beginning teachers with a master's degree the count rose from 11 to 34.
The more telling movement is further up the salary schedule. For teachers ten years into the profession with a bachelor's degree, the number of unaffordable districts went from 2 in 2019 to 18 in 2025. For the same teachers with a master's degree it went from zero to 8. A decade of experience and a graduate degree used to be a reliable route out of cost burden in a large district. In a quarter of the districts NCTQ studied, it no longer is.
San Diego Unified was the most unaffordable district in the 2025 analysis, where rent consumed 45% of the salary of a beginning teacher holding a master's degree.
This sits on top of a compensation gap that predates the housing run-up. The Economic Policy Institute has tracked what it calls the teacher pay penalty since the 1990s. In 2024 the regression-adjusted weekly wage gap between public school teachers and comparable college graduates reached 26.9%, the highest in the series. Counting benefits, which run better for teachers, the total compensation gap was 17.1%. The Learning Policy Institute frames the same problem by career stage: beginning teachers earn about 20% less than college graduates in other fields, a gap that can widen to 30% for mid-career educators.
The practical implication for a district is that salary alone is a slow instrument against this. A raise is taxed, it applies across the whole schedule, and in the markets where the gap is worst it is competing against rent increases of a similar or larger size. Housing acts on the cost side of the same equation, and it does so only for the employees who choose to use it.
Sources
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or in partnership with any organisation cited below.
Learning Policy Institute. (2017). What's the Cost of Teacher Turnover? Published 13 September 2017. Source for the more than $20,000 per new hire figure in urban districts, the 6 of 10 replacement figure, and the 20% beginning and 30% mid-career pay gap.
Learning Policy Institute. (2024). About 2024 Teacher Turnover Calculations. Published 17 September 2024. Source for $11,860, $16,450 and $24,930 per teacher replaced, in January 2024 dollars, and for the stated exclusion of student learning losses. Companion to 2024 Update: What's the Cost of Teacher Turnover?
Tan, T., Wei, W., Carver-Thomas, D., & García, E. (2026). Teacher Turnover in the United States: Who Moves, Who Leaves, and Why. Learning Policy Institute. Source for 15.1% turnover, the 8.0% and 7.1% split, 74% voluntary and non-retirement, and 20.1% against 14.7% by certification status.
Comai, S., Kemper Patrick, S., & Tan, T. (2025). 2025 Update: Latest National Scan Shows Teacher Shortages Persist. Learning Policy Institute blog, 15 July 2025. Source for 411,500 positions, 1 in 8, and more than 6 million students.
Carver-Thomas, D., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2017). Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It. Learning Policy Institute. Source for the estimate that about 90% of annual national teacher demand is created by teachers leaving. Note this is a 2017 estimate.
Bowser, K. (2025). Priced Out: The Growing Challenge of Teacher Pay and Housing Costs. National Council on Teacher Quality, District Trendline, 8 May 2025. Source for home prices up 47%, rents up 51%, beginning salaries up 24% from 2019 to 2025; for the 72 district sample; for 39 of 72 and 34 of 72 unaffordable for beginning teachers; for 18 of 72 and 8 of 72 at ten years of experience; and for San Diego Unified at 45%.
Allegretto, S. (2025). The Teacher Pay Penalty Reached a Record High in 2024. Economic Policy Institute. Source for the 26.9% regression-adjusted weekly wage penalty and the 17.1% total compensation gap. These are weekly wages, not annual pay.
Hinkley, S., & Proussaloglou, E. (2025). Housing California Educators: Insights from Nine Education Workforce Housing Developments. Center for Cities + Schools, UC Berkeley, and cityLAB, UCLA. April 2025. Source for all nine unit counts, the 2 to 6 storey and 18 to 141 units per acre ranges, one-bedroom affordability at or below 30% of entry-level income, financing mechanism by project, the 7.5 year average concept to occupancy, the five year contract to move-in figure, the Jefferson Union 85% and 90% retention figures from that district's 2023-24 Local Control and Accountability Plan, the Casa del Maestro rent trajectory from about 50% to about 80% of market, the halved commute time, the 36% storage and 25% safety satisfaction figures, and the permitting and construction delay findings.
Gottlieb, A., Lagana, M., Spearman, K., & Schoales, V. (2025). We Can't Live Where We Teach: Teacher Perspectives. Keystone Policy Center, August 2025. Source for the survey of more than 3,200 Colorado educators, 58% interest in district housing, and the 70% comfortable with the district as landlord figure, which the report itself notes drew limited responses.
Texas and Florida board decisions reported by: Community Impact and KUT News on Hays CISD; KXAN on Lockhart ISD; Ocala Gazette on Marion County; Taylor Press on Taylor, Texas.
The first two steps in the process above take an afternoon and need nothing from us. If you would rather talk it through, or you want the affordability test run against your own salary schedule, we will do that.
Get in touch →Upward Communities develops workforce housing for public sector employees. We have a commercial interest in this subject and would rather say so here than have you find out later. Everything on this page is sourced so you can check it without taking our word for anything.
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