First off, I was not referring to University professors but rather High School teachers teaching a very basic curriculum, elementary English, Geography, Algebra etc.
If a teacher is great and has an MS in Engineering then go ahead and pay him the same as the Software Engineer, I have no issues with it. But someone with a BA in English teaching grammar to 8th graders and justifying $70-80k just because they have “stress” is not a good argument. We have a shortage of good Math/Science teachers why? because compensation is not based on the area of teaching, the pay is standardized across the board…so the guy teaching grammar is making the same as the guy teaching Calculus, not good.
I agree with the gentleman who said Engineering is academically difficult and 50% of the students drop out. I saw this in my Computer Science program myself, people just changed majors because they couldn’t go through with it.