Behind the scenes of school systems: researchers, test designers, policy experts, journalists, and the people who fund and oversee education.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Psychometrician: Uses advanced statistics to design and check tests like the SAT, state exams, and professional licensing tests, making sure they're fair and accurate. Typical pay $115k.
Education Researcher: Studies what makes teaching and schools work, using experiments, data, and classroom observation. Typical pay $110k.
Education Economist: Uses economics to study questions like whether smaller classes or teacher raises improve student outcomes. Typical pay $120k.
Education Attorney: Lawyer who represents school districts, colleges, or families in cases about special education, discipline, and civil rights. Typical pay $151k.
Education Foundation Program Officer: Decides which education projects a foundation should fund, managing millions in grants. Typical pay $120k.
Accreditation Specialist: Makes sure colleges or schools meet the standards needed to stay accredited, which keeps degrees valid and financial aid flowing. Typical pay $72k.
Education Program Evaluator: Measures whether an education program (like a tutoring initiative or after-school club) actually works. Typical pay $75k.
Education Journalist: Reports on schools, colleges, and education policy for newspapers, websites, or podcasts. Typical pay $60k.
Teacher Licensure Specialist: Reviews teacher license applications for a state education department or university. Typical pay $60k.
Test Security Analyst: Hunts for cheating on big exams by spotting impossible score jumps, copied answers and leaked questions, then investigates. Typical pay $85k.
Charter School Authorizer: Reviews applications to open new charter schools, checks their results and finances, and recommends which ones stay open or close. Typical pay $78k.
School Finance Policy Analyst: Works out how a state's billions in school funding get split among districts, and models what happens if lawmakers change the formula. Typical pay $80k.
Student Data Privacy Officer: Protects students' personal information by checking every app and website a school uses and making sure grades and records don't leak. Typical pay $95k.
Starter: fastest way in
Education Research Assistant: Supports education research projects by collecting data, observing classrooms, and cleaning data sets. Typical pay $48k.
Standardized Test Scorer: Reads and scores student essays and open-ended answers on state tests and AP exams. Typical pay $25k.
Education Advocacy Organizer: Organizes parents, students, or teachers to push for changes in schools and education policy. Typical pay $48k.
School Board Member: Elected community member who helps set policy, budgets, and direction for a school district. Typical pay $4k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.