[pseudo0]

Rural Alaska... Just about the most inhospitable climate in the US, remote, and with a very high cost of living. Teachers can find work just about anywhere, they have little incentive to stay in Alaska.

The solution for this is simple - pay them more. There are plenty of recently graduated teachers who would work in Alaska for a few years if it paid off their student loans or let them save up a down payment on a house.

[tastyfreeze]

Alaska will already pay off loans for teachers that will teach in rural communities. My friend taught in Yakutat for 5 years to pay off loans before moving to a larger town. But Yakutat is well connected as far as rural towns go. They have jet service and a ferry in the summer. Not many takers to go live in a tribal town 200 miles up a river.

[culopatin]

And who pays that extra? Who are you taxing in the middle of nowhere?

[Analemma_]

The Alaska Permanent Fund from their oil revenue is worth $90 billion and they send every resident an annual $1,000 check on top of heavily subsidized fuel. I think they can pay competitive teacher salaries.

[Brybry]

Alaska is already in the top 8 median elementary school teacher salaries nationally, with ~$79,260 in 2025 compared to 2024 national median of $62,310 (couldn't find 2025). They were #2 and #3 in education spending as a percent of state GDP in 2024 and 2025. [1][2][3]

It would need to be more than just competitive, it would probably need to be doctor-tier "I'm giving up my life plans for this salary in Alaska" level (which is what I assume it's like for foreign labor).

It's possible they can afford it. I would think they would need to double or more their education spending (~$2.77 billion (24/25), ~45% -> wages) state wide which would be most of what the Alaska Permanent Fund pays out per year ($3-4 billion) [4][5]

I imagine it would be politically very unpopular for obvious reasons.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/kinde...

[2] https://data.bls.gov/oesprofile/?major_group=250000&occupati... (increase records to see Alaska)

[3] https://www.schoolfinancedata.org/annual-reports/2024

https://www.schoolfinancedata.org/annual-reports/2025

[4] https://alaskapolicyforum.org/2025/06/alaskas-schools-are-ro...

[5] https://apfc.org/the-fund/fund-structure/

[tastyfreeze]

The Alaska Permanent Fund is not a general government account. It is legally separate from state government funds.

[bijowo1676]

there is already a program like that, its been running for ages, its called PLSF. Still not enough teachers.

https://studentaid.gov/manage-loans/forgiveness-cancellation...

People who critique H1B always seem to assume that people actually hiring for labor are much dumber than those bright commenters and haven't exhausted each and every other opportunity to find qualified people.

No, you are not being smarter than lawmakers who enacted H1B program, and then refused to dismantle it at every opportunity to do so. You are not smarter than employers who have to hire via H1B and pay tens of thousands dollars to immigration lawyers for stupid paperwork.

Most of the critique of H1B in this post is just bigoted, hateful, and uneducated rant

[dani__german]

you said "smarter" in this comment when a more accurate term is "corrupt". Being unable to find a candidate for your given budget requires that you either increase the budgeted salary or decrease the requirements, and train on the job. If you cannot do either of these, your company MUST fail. It is inhumane to demolish the US working class by importing foreign scab labor. Too much labor supply (aka immigration) decreases fair market value for wages. That alone is more than enough justification for ending all immigration of any significant amount.

Handwaving away significant issues as "bigotry, etc" is unhelpful to the discussion. We haven't even covered the impact on housing supply, as illustrated by Canada's insane valuations.

[Qworg]

What are the knock on effects of lowering the total number of people/the velocity of money/the number of companies in America?

Canada's housing supply cost issues are driven by a wide variety of factors, very little having to do with immigration and far more with a small number of wealthy families owning a huge amount of land and a larger number of wealthy people holding many homes.

[bijowo1676]

OpenAI and Anthropic and others are paying millions to hire qualified people, yet they still have to hire H1Bs.

Dont tell me there are no Americans willing to take a million dollar job and these foreigners are causing wage decreases, despite tech salaries showing only increasing trend. Theres never been a year when tech salaries have decreased, not in 2008, not in 2000, not in 2020.

Its all hockey stick growth for tech people.

Housing supply is blocked by American citizens, mostly boomers, who oppose any development and oppose public transit. You cant blame foreigners for something that your fellow citizens are doing

Re Canada: I believe there is strong money laundering money flow in Canadian RE that has nothing to do with immigration. Its all illicit money being laundered by Canadians themselves

[dani__german]

Boomer zoning laws do affect housing supply by reducing supply.

Immigration affects housing demand by increasing demand. These are both effects. They are both bad.

The solution options are: 1. Destroy zoning and keep immigration the same and go full Favela mode 2. 0 out immigration and keep having nice, but too expensive houses 3. address both problems and absolutely crater housing prices, thus giving the youth a place to grow and have families.

We do need to address both sides of the issue. Don't forget that there is both Supply, and Demand for any economic item.