Business Teachers, Postsecondary

Books, colored pencils and a globe in a bright classroom.

What the pay figures show

  • For once the obvious answer is right. Alaska pays this job best, at $168,930. It keeps that lead after tax. It keeps it after local prices too — $124,593 in comparable money. Most jobs are not this tidy.
  • The nominal leader for business teachers, postsecondary is also the real leader: Alaska at $168,930, holding through tax and through price deflation to $124,593. Both adjustments leave the ordering at the top intact, which indicates a wage premium large enough to dominate the state's tax burden and price level rather than merely offset them.

Compare this career across states

Choose your filing status and local taxes, compare pay, and keep a shortlist.Compare wage and personal-pay outcomes by state, with selected resident local taxes and saved career choices.

Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026

National median

$99,080

People doing it

82,150

Highest paid

$168,930

AK

Best off, really

$124,593

AK, after tax and prices

Lowest tenth

$47,180

Highest tenth

$209,470

Lowest, really

$53,866

HI

States with data

51

National average

$114,720

mean, not median

Prices where it goes furthest

101.72%

AK, against a national 100

Where this job actually pays best

  • Where you do this job matters enormously. The best state pays roughly twice what the worst does. Prices alone cannot explain a gap that size. Level everything out and the range still runs $53,866 to $124,593.
  • Just 82,150 Americans work in this job. Small fields move around more from year to year.
  • No gaps here — all 51 jurisdictions publish a number for this job, which sits at $99,080 in the middle.
  • Geographic dispersion in business teachers, postsecondary is unusually wide: the top state's median is approximately double the bottom's, a spread that price differentials cannot account for. The real-terms range, after tax and price deflation, still runs $53,866 to $124,593 — so the variation reflects genuine differences in local labor markets rather than a nominal illusion.
  • 82,150 are employed nationally in business teachers, postsecondary — a small occupation, where the state spread above is more sensitive to sample composition than it would be in a large one.
  • 51 jurisdictions report business teachers, postsecondary, giving full coverage. The extremes quoted above are therefore the true reported maximum and minimum.

Pay band: Business Teachers, Postsecondary

The national median for this job

50thpercentile, roughly
Lowest tenth earn under$47,180
Half earn under$99,080
Top tenth earn over$209,470
This salary$99,080

Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.

Where these numbers come from
BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current)as of 2025-05-01

Steps in Business Teachers, Postsecondary

The national median for this job

$99,080around the 50th percentilep10median · you are herep90you
Lowest tenth$47,180
Middle$99,080
Top tenth$209,470

The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.

Business Teachers, Postsecondary, state by state

The national median for this job

51states publish pay for this jobAlaska — $168,930Delaware — $130,370Louisiana — $129,040California — $128,470District of Columbia — $128,370Maryland — $126,560Utah — $115,870Michigan — $111,190North Dakota — $110,050New York — $104,490West Virginia — $104,480Virginia — $103,860Rhode Island — $103,820Connecticut — $103,750Massachusetts — $103,110Pennsylvania — $101,760Texas — $101,210Vermont — $101,170Washington — $100,390Missouri — $100,310Oregon — $100,180Nevada — $98,920Wisconsin — $96,680Minnesota — $95,820Illinois — $94,770Nebraska — $88,690Indiana — $86,640Tennessee — $85,950New Jersey — $85,250Idaho — $84,190New Mexico — $83,980Kansas — $83,310Maine — $83,250Iowa — $83,200New Hampshire — $83,070Georgia — $82,820Alabama — $82,170Oklahoma — $82,060Arizona — $81,600Montana — $81,490Kentucky — $80,140Ohio — $79,770North Carolina — $79,600Florida — $78,870South Carolina — $78,830Colorado — $78,210Hawaii — $76,860Mississippi — $75,680South Dakota — $72,650Wyoming — $69,550Arkansas — $64,620Texas · $101,210lowest $64,620highest $168,930
LowestArkansas · $64,620
HighestAlaska · $168,930
Spread$104,310

One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.

Best paid, and best off

The national median for this job

PayAfter pricesAK: → AKAKDE: → DEDELA: → LACA: → CADC: → MD: → MDUT: → UTMI: → TX: → TXTX
Texas pays$101,210
Worth, after local prices$104,152

Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.

Every state, three ways

Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.

Business Teachers, Postsecondary pay by state
StateMedian payKept after taxReally worth
AK$168,930$126,730$124,593
LA$129,040$95,980$108,642
ND$110,050$85,363$96,377
DE$130,370$93,000$93,700
UT$115,870$85,188$89,670
MD$126,560$91,952$88,445
MI$111,190$82,577$87,677
WV$104,480$78,436$87,372
MO$100,310$75,621$82,410
TX$101,210$80,031$82,358
DC$128,370$91,064$82,185
CA$128,470$91,220$81,026
NV$98,920$78,420$80,862
PA$101,760$77,294$79,276
VT$101,170$75,436$78,063
WI$96,680$72,560$77,940
RI$103,820$78,288$77,198
VA$103,860$76,684$76,114
NE$88,690$67,892$75,121
TN$85,950$69,296$74,902
CT$103,750$76,843$74,109
WA$100,390$79,454$73,188
IA$83,200$64,811$73,013
IN$86,640$67,255$72,957
MN$95,820$71,247$72,393
NM$83,980$65,126$72,053
IL$94,770$70,954$71,776
OK$82,060$63,367$71,775
NY$104,490$77,214$71,743
MA$103,110$76,532$70,707
ID$84,190$64,449$70,494
AL$82,170$63,155$70,196
KS$83,310$63,078$70,114
MT$81,490$62,915$69,716
OH$79,770$63,471$69,131
KY$80,140$62,521$69,109
SD$72,650$59,939$68,039
OR$100,180$71,091$67,886
MS$75,680$59,136$67,745
NC$79,600$62,161$66,031
SC$78,830$61,376$65,870
GA$82,820$63,560$65,730
ME$83,250$63,086$64,972
AZ$81,600$64,598$63,892
NH$83,070$67,270$63,857
WY$69,550$57,758$63,577
FL$78,870$64,315$62,169
AR$64,620$52,170$60,306
CO$78,210$61,118$60,285
NJ$85,250$65,563$60,214
HI$76,860$58,503$53,866
Sources and assumptions
  • These are middle-of-the-range figures for this job, not what a new starter is offered. Half the people doing this job earn under $99,080 nationally, half over. Your own experience and employer will move you well away from that midpoint in either direction.
  • One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for this job. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Alaska keeps the most at $126,730.
  • The price adjustment for this job uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — Hawaii anchors the bottom at $53,866. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
  • All wage figures for business teachers, postsecondary are medians rather than entry or offer rates; the national median is $99,080. Within-state dispersion typically exceeds between-state dispersion in this data, so an individual's expected wage is determined more by experience, sector and employer than by the state comparisons presented here.
  • The household modeled for business teachers, postsecondary is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Alaska retains the most, $126,730. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
  • Real-terms figures for business teachers, postsecondary deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.