Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Subject Areas at Marquette University

Marquette's teacher education graduates earn slightly above the Wisconsin median at $45,974, though the sample size here is too small to draw firm conclusions. While that puts them in the 73rd percentile nationally—a solid showing—they're only at the 60th percentile within Wisconsin, trailing UW-Stout, Platteville, and Madison by $1,000-$1,250 annually. That gap might not seem large, but over a teaching career, it adds up.

The debt picture is more straightforward: $27,000 sits right at Wisconsin's median and well below the national average, landing in the 25th percentile nationally (meaning 75% of programs saddle students with more debt). The debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.59 is manageable for a teaching salary, translating to roughly six months of gross income. For a profession with strong benefits and loan forgiveness programs, that's reasonable leverage.

The real question is whether Marquette's private school premium—likely higher tuition than UW schools—justifies outcomes that are comparable but not superior to in-state public options. If your child values Marquette's smaller class sizes and Jesuit mission enough to potentially pay more upfront, these graduates do fine. But purely from an ROI standpoint, the top-performing UW campuses deliver similar or better results at lower cost. The small sample size means one or two high earners could be skewing these numbers upward, so confirm current placement rates and starting salaries with the education department directly.