jerf, you aren't looking at it from two perspectives. Both employers and employees have options. If an employee could do teaching or job x, and teaching pays $30k and job x pays $60k, which should the employee take? If teachers earned more, then the pool of talent gets larger.

You say, If it's a problem that nobody will do X, when really the issue is, "Nobody will do X for $X, but lots will do X for $Y."

In something as complex as a society, society has to make investments it its future. In our society, we have become so short focused on quarterly reports, that we have forgotten the value of education. The payoff of education to a society takes years, decades, generations... this is beyond simple supply/demand microeconomics.

You've attached extra semantics to X and Y that were not in the original post. I do not apologize for failing to guess what you would read those variables as.

I acknowledge the value of government in tweaking the market values of some things; I'm only a little-l libertarian. However, as an engineer, I observe that in order to do that successfully, you have to start with a correct understanding of how the market works, dynamically, not just statically. Getting emotional about valuations the market gives is not a good start.

It is not beyond supply/demand. If I can see the value of education for my lifetime of earnings is greater than what it will cost me I will do it. If it's not or I can't tell, I will not. Crying about the short sightedness of others on this dimension or many others is nothing new.