I'm not sure on that 100k middle school teacher number. My mother was a teacher for over 15 years and I doubt anyone except maybe the rare administrator or the superintendent of the whole school system were making 100k. Most teachers are in the 40-60k range. One thing you can do if you have student debt is too work in a low income area for 5 years or so and have your loan forgiven.

College is a little different. In my IT degree teachers were making anywhere from 70k-150k.