Occupation / job
Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
$103,170 is $4,429 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
9,900 people work as Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary. That is enough for a functioning national market and not enough for a functioning local one — in most metros this is a few employers rather than a field you can move around inside.
This work suits people who want to spend a career inside one subject, teaching it while contributing to it, and who can tolerate an institution whose incentives do not always favour either.
We carry no verified training length for Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary — BLS reports pay, not preparation, and we will not estimate it.
Who should not do this
A quarter of the field earns under $77,260 and a quarter over $135,510: $58,250 between them, a ratio of 1.8x. Wide enough that the first offer you get tells you more about your prospects than the median does.
The bottom quarter of this field earns $77,260 — $37.14 an hour, $27,240 above the $50,020 national midpoint. When even the worst-paid quarter of Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary is this far ahead, the barrier to entry is doing the work of keeping it there.
Avoid it if you need a permanent post at the end; a great deal of this teaching is done on contracts that are not.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 9,900 people employed as Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
From $77,260 to $135,510 at a ratio of 1.8x is wide enough that two people with the same job title have materially different jobs. $103,170 sits in the middle of that and describes neither of them especially well.
In cash terms the middle half of Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary runs $77,260 to $135,510 — $58,250 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $103,170.
The 75th percentile is $135,510. Reaching it from the $103,170 midpoint is $32,340 a year; reaching it from the $77,260 that the bottom quarter of Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary earn is $58,250.
The climb from $103,170 to $135,510 is $32,340; the drop to $77,260 is $25,910. A little more room above the midpoint than below it is the normal shape for Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary and for most paid work, and it is the reason the median is the honest summary rather than the average.
Converted to an hourly rate over a full-time year: $37.14 at the bottom quarter, $49.60 at the midpoint, $65.14 at the top quarter. The typical American job works out at $24.04 on the same basis.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $103,170 describes them.
With no unpaid-hours or cost data for Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary, the hourly figure is $103,170 over a 2,080-hour year — a unit conversion, not an adjustment.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else