Undoubtedly, economic considerations enter into students' feelings about the attractiveness of teaching. In 1998, the average salary for all public elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States was $39,400. This salary places teachers somewhere near the average of all wage earners in the nation. (In private industry, Workers with professional responsibilities and educational qualifications comparable with teachers earn salaries ranging from $38,000 to $90,000.) By contrast, university students in Japanese teachers are paid 10 percent more than employees in the top-level civil service job, which places them among the top 10 percent of wage earners in the country (Bureau of the Census 1999a:179;Richburg 1985).