This article was originally published in New Hampshire Bulletin.
To choose the teaching profession in New Hampshire is to navigate a series of financial trade-offs.
The median salary for K-12 teachers in 2024 was $66,123 — enough to comfortably afford a $1,653 monthly rent, according to a 2025 New Hampshire Housing report. The median two-bedroom rent that year? $2,024 per month.
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And becoming a teacher means earning nearly 34% less than other New Hampshire professionals with similar educational backgrounds, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute.
Those numbers are at the heart of a new report pointing to a continuing challenge. As New Hampshire public schools face declining enrollment, they are also contending with another long-term concern: recruiting and retaining teachers.
And recent state projections suggest the gap is set to persist.
The report, published Tuesday by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, points to a steady decline in the number of teachers currently working in the state in the last 10 years, a decrease in the number of teaching students to replace those teachers, and a rising proportion of teachers who are in the later stages of their careers.
Together, the data suggest long-term headwinds for New Hampshire public schools that could affect student achievement and future economic growth in the state, the Fiscal Policy Institute report concludes.
“We really wanted to study … what the future of public education will look like,” said Ben Reynolds, a senior policy analyst at NHFPI.
The report emerged as local school budgets enter the spotlight this election season. When New Hampshire residents vote in the Nov. 3 general election, they will face a ballot question asking whether they support imposing a tax cap on their school district to limit year-over-year tax increases to inflation. Under a state law passed this year, if at least 60% of voters in a school district approve that question, the cap will take effect for two years.
Democrats argue teacher pay is too low because of low state support for public schools; most public school funding comes from local property taxes. Republicans say school districts spend too much on administration and should spend more of their current budgets on teacher salaries. If passed, the November ballot measure would limit a district’s administrative spending to 6% of its overall budget.
Continual decline and future challenges
The number of teachers in the state has declined in the past 10 years. In the 2025-2026 school year, there were 13,648 “full-time equivalent” educators in New Hampshire, a 5.7% drop from the 14,473 in 2015-2016. That metric is not the same as the true number of teachers — multiple part-time educators can constitute one full-time equivalent position — but it does show the overall decline in employment, the report notes.
The 5.7% drop in teachers took place as overall public school enrollment declined 12.8% in the same time period. Republican lawmakers have pointed to that enrollment drop as evidence that public schools should be scaling down in size, not expanding.
But Reynolds said the declining student population does not necessarily justify the loss of teachers. School districts still must hire specialty teachers to meet minimum state standards, and staffing levels cannot always drop proportionately, he noted
“You still need those teachers even if the classroom’s a little bit smaller,” he said.
Despite projections that school enrollment will continue to decrease amid a nationwide drop in the birth rate, the state Department of Employment Security estimates that the number of teaching jobs in New Hampshire will increase between 2024 and 2034 by 3.5%, according to the report.
The problem: Schools will likely struggle to fill those new jobs.
While the number of teaching jobs could increase from 15,611 in 2024 to 16,164 in 2034, the state will face an average shortfall of 1,114 teachers per year, the department estimates. Across each public school grade level, the number of vacancies in New Hampshire will likely dwarf the number of prospective teachers, the data suggests.
Research suggests a higher turnover of teachers — and a lack of experience and effectiveness — leads to reduced student outcomes and can limit the earning potential of those students when they graduate.
But Reynolds notes that it also affects the teachers themselves. A constant churn means there are fewer opportunities for the mentorship and growth that can build effective educators, he said.
“Having that network and support there really helps improve young teachers,” he said.
And when teachers leave, he said: “The remaining teachers there (are) facing heavier workloads or additional responsibilities.”
Older teachers, fewer students
As the pool of teachers has shrunk in recent years, a larger share of New Hampshire’s teachers are nearing retirement, the data shows.
In 2004, 8,889 teachers were 55 or older. By 2025, that number had grown to 13,432, a 51% increase. Overall, 33.7% of New Hampshire teachers were in that older age group in 2025, up from 22.1% in 2004.
Meanwhile, the pipeline to replace the current crop of teachers is shrinking rapidly. The number of New Hampshire students earning a bachelor’s degree in teaching dropped from 442 in 2020 to 283 in 2025 — down from 567 in 2015. The state has seen a 47% drop in teaching graduates from 2010 to 2025, the report notes.
The aging challenges reflect broader demographic trends in New Hampshire, the second oldest state behind Maine. But for public schools, it will mean tougher recruitment battles.
“A smaller pool of graduates will likely make hiring teachers locally more difficult, particularly in rural or lower-paying school districts that have to compete with higher-paying districts,” the report states.
Teachers facing low salaries
In a Reaching Higher New Hampshire survey last month that asked teachers to pick “one change” to improve recruitment and retention, the frontrunner suggestion was clear: “increased pay.”
Tuesday’s report suggests New Hampshire’s public schools are far behind other industries when it comes to salaries. Though National Education Association data indicates the average teacher salary in New Hampshire in 2024-2025 was $69,432, the starting salary was $44,010.
Those numbers are comparable to Maine, at $65,621 (average) and $44,152 (starting), and Vermont, at $71,871 and $46,963. But when compared to New Hampshire’s “minimum living wage” of $83,057, a number calculated by the Economic Policy Institute as the amount needed for an adult and a child to meet a “modest standard of living,” those numbers fall short.
Meanwhile, U.S. Census American Community Survey data indicates that teachers have long made less than their counterparts with bachelor’s degrees — and the gap is widening. While weekly New Hampshire teacher wages were 29.6% below similar degree holders from 2005 to 2009, they were 34.5% below between 2015 and 2019, the report notes.
A separate analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found that New Hampshire teachers in 2024-2025 earned 33.8% less than their similarly educated peers, even when adjusting for weeks worked to account for school summer vacation.
Complicating the average wages, New Hampshire’s local property tax funding model allows high-property-value districts to offer far higher salaries to teachers than less resourced districts. The result: while a new teacher in New Castle made $59,396 in 2025-2026, a new teacher in Bath made $36,148, the report notes.
The disparity is one more factor in a broader, years-long problem, Reynolds notes.
“They love to teach,” he said. “They’re very passionate about it, and they understand the importance of providing a high-quality education for these kids. But if the conversation doesn’t also happen about them, and they almost feel like they’re left behind, that could cause even more attrition than we’re already seeing.”
New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com.