Independent New Hampshire Journalism · Northfield, NH

New Hampshire Teachers Averaged $69,432 in 2024-25, Fifth of Six New England States. After Inflation, the 2025-26 Estimate Is 7 Percent Below 2016-17.

New Hampshire spent more per public school student than all but five states in 2024-25 and raised a larger share of its school revenue from local sources than any other state. Its average teacher salary ranked 24th of the 50.

The average classroom teacher in a New Hampshire public school was paid $69,432 in the 2024-25 school year, according to the National Education Association’s annual state rankings, published in an August 2026 update. The national average was $74,495. New Hampshire ranked 25th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, or 24th among the states alone, and its average was 93.2 percent of the national figure.

The New Hampshire number is not an NEA estimate. The report marks estimated figures with an asterisk, and New Hampshire’s salary figures carry none, which means they came from the state education department, which may revise them in later editions. The NEA defines an average salary as the arithmetic mean of regularly paid gross salary, before deductions for Social Security, retirement, health insurance and other benefits. Teachers are counted as full-time equivalents.

The state’s average rose 3.37 percent from a revised $67,170 in 2023-24. The national average rose 3.49 percent over the same year, from $71,985.

Fifth of six in New England

Among the six New England states, only Maine reported a lower average for 2024-25, at $65,621, or $3,811 less than New Hampshire. Massachusetts reported $93,554, or $24,122 more. Vermont reported $71,871. The NEA’s figures for Connecticut and Rhode Island are its own estimates; the report says salary figures for both are calculated from American Community Survey data.

The long record

The U.S. Department of Education’s statistics arm, the National Center for Education Statistics, republishes the NEA’s state salary series in its Digest of Education Statistics. The 2022 edition of that table, Table 211.60, prepared in August 2022, runs from 1969-70 through 2021-22. It converts each year to 2021-22 dollars using the Consumer Price Index.

In current dollars, New Hampshire’s average rose from $7,771 in 1969-70 to $62,783 in 2021-22. Across the years the table lists, the low came in 1979-80 and the high in 2009-10. In 2021-22 dollars, the average fell to $47,288 in 1979-80, its lowest point in the table, when New Hampshire ranked 46th of the 50 states and paid 81.5 percent of the national average. It climbed to $66,940 in 2009-10, the highest of the years the table lists. By 2021-22 it had slipped to $62,783, a drop of 6.2 percent from 2009-10. The national average fell 7.8 percent over the same span.

Because the national average fell faster, New Hampshire’s average reached 94.6 percent of the national figure in 2021-22, up from 92.9 percent in 2009-10. Its rank among the 50 states was 21st in 2009-10 and 19th in 2021-22.

The two sources are not one series. Each NEA edition asks state education departments to revise up to six years of past figures as needed, and the NCES table reflects figures as of the 2022 edition. The 2024-25 figure above comes from the 2026 report, which puts New Hampshire 24th among the states, five places lower than the 2022 table’s 2021-22 rank. Granite State Report has not joined the two into a single line.

A decade of raises, measured against prices

The NEA’s estimate for 2025-26 puts New Hampshire’s average at $71,857, up 3.49 percent from 2024-25. The report calculates that the average grew 24.92 percent in current dollars from 2016-17 to 2025-26, and fell 7.05 percent in constant dollars, adjusted with the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The national average grew 28.18 percent in current dollars over the decade and fell 4.63 percent after inflation.

The Consumer Price Index measures national prices. The NCES table notes that it “does not account for differences in inflation rates from state to state,” and points readers who want to adjust for differences in the cost of living from state to state to a federal index, the American Community Survey Comparable Wage Index for Teachers.

High spending per student, middle-ranked pay

The same NEA tables put New Hampshire near the top on spending. The state’s current expenditure per student in fall enrollment was $23,619 in 2024-25, sixth among the 50 states and seventh counting the District of Columbia, against a national average of $17,873. Current expenditures cover the cost of running schools, including staff salaries, fixed charges, student transportation, books and materials, and energy, but not capital outlay or interest on school debt.

New Hampshire also has more teachers for its students than most states. It reported 11.1 students enrolled per teacher in fall 2024, the third-lowest ratio among the 50 states, behind Vermont and New York, compared with 15.1 nationally. The report does not attempt to explain how spending per student and average salaries relate in any state, and neither figure alone shows how a district divides its budget.

Where the money comes from sets New Hampshire apart. Local sources supplied 65.7 percent of the state’s public school revenue in 2024-25, the highest share of any state; only the District of Columbia, at 92.0 percent, was higher. State sources supplied 28.2 percent, the lowest share of any state. Nationally, local sources supplied 45.0 percent and states 47.2 percent.

A drop in the teacher count

The 2026 report lists 14,685 full-time-equivalent classroom teachers in New Hampshire public schools in 2024-25, down 6.74 percent from a revised 15,747 in 2023-24. Only Tennessee reported a larger percentage drop. Enrollment fell 1.47 percent over the same year, from 165,082 to 162,660. The report gives no explanation for New Hampshire’s change, and a one-year shift of that size can reflect a change in how a state counts as well as a change in staffing. The figure is the state’s reported count as the NEA published it.

What these numbers cannot show

An average is a mean. It can be pulled up or down by the mix of new and veteran teachers in a state, and it says nothing about the pay of a teacher in a given district. The NEA reports averages, not medians or salary schedules, and its state figures are not adjusted for local living costs. The NEA is the largest national teachers union; its research office compiles the figures from state education departments and fills gaps with its own estimates, and the federal government reprints the series in its own statistical tables.

Granite State Report has covered New Hampshire’s school population before: New Hampshire’s Public Schools Lost a Fifth of Their Students From 2000 to 2023. No State Lost a Larger Share.

— Granite State Report

Fact check

Editor’s note. Salary, staffing, enrollment, revenue and spending figures for 2023-24 through 2025-26 are drawn from the National Education Association’s Rankings of the States 2025 and Estimates of School Statistics 2026, August 2026 update. Figures for 1969-70 through 2021-22 are drawn from Table 211.60 of the National Center for Education Statistics’ Digest of Education Statistics 2022. Ranks among the 50 states, shares of the national average and dollar differences the sources did not state are Granite State Report arithmetic from those tables.

Corrections: Granite State Report corrects verified errors promptly and appends a dated note identifying what changed and when. The corrections policy and the corrections register are public, and correction notes are never removed.