Public schoolteachers in Colorado earned 60 cents on the dollar compared to other college graduates who work in different professions in 2025, according to a new report.

Colorado's 40% “teacher pay penalty” is the highest among all 50 states. The average penalty nationwide was 25%, more than six times higher than it was in 1996.

Sylvia Allegretto, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the report's author, said as teacher pay falls further and further behind, many are considering other options.

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"(There are) other careers that they could choose and I think it has a lot of issues for teacher retention and recruitment," Allegretto explained. "It's not a new problem. It just keeps getting worse."

Proposition NN on Colorado's November ballot would boost teacher pay by amending the state's Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which limits the ability to raise revenues based on a formula of inflation and population growth. Allegretto argued the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, passed in 1992, is a big reason Colorado has consistently had the highest teacher pay penalty in the nation.

If voters approve the measure, Coloradans would forgo some of their refunds to invest in K-12 education. Critics of the proposition said lawmakers should find a way to increase school funding within the bounds of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

The report found women hold 70% of all teaching jobs, a trend dating back to a time when women were barred from entering other occupations, but Allegretto noted it is not the case today.

"Women have a lot more choices in what they do for a career," Allegretto stressed. "You have to be thinking, 'Are we really getting the best and the brightest with these ever-increasing pay gaps to become public schoolteachers today?'"

The pay penalty is higher for men, which tracks with the nation’s persistent gender pay gap, where women earn just 81 cents for every dollar a man makes. The overall share of male teachers has remained static for decades and Allegretto acknowledged it is unlikely to change if men can only make two-thirds of what other college graduates are getting.

"This, by the way, is at a time when everybody is talking about the need to have more male teachers because of the issues that boys are having, and the research is showing that it matters who's at the front of the classroom," Allegretto added.