We're not talking about total compensation, we're talking about salary.

Have you ever talked with a young teacher? Ask them how they're doing on paying back those student loans. Several people I went to highschool^ with are currently working as teachers (several more are still looking for teaching jobs. The surplus of people looking to get into education certainly doesn't help...). While I had my student loans paid off quite some time ago, they are still floundering. Although they love 'their kids', more than one has confided in me that they don't know what the hell they were thinking.

Salary, specifically how it will enable them to pay back their loans, is the sort of thing that young people in university consider when they are decided whether they want to go into industry or education. Total compensation doesn't really enter the equation at that stage.

When the best and the brightest can get starting offers with a salary two or three times as high as starting teacher salaries, that is going to take a toll in the grand scheme of things. You'll still have a few very bright chaps (such as my highschool friends) who swallow the bullet and go into education anyway, but you cannot expect that to be typical.

^ We still talk a few times a year, and they are all closer with each other than any of them are with me. Incidentally, nobody I know from my (rather over-priced) private university has gone into education...

End previous comment.

The point that you should get here is that total compensation does not pay student loans. Salary is the relevant number when you are trying to convince students straight out of school with student loans to come work for you. Starting teacher salary is undeniably remarkably low.

Or to answer your question directly and succinctly: My comment is not evidence of low total compensation, nor was it meant to be taken as such.