I'd be fine with a random anesthesiologist teaching my grade schooler, but I'd hesitate to have a random elementary school teacher giving him anesthesia.
Elementary school teaching: a teaching certificate.
University professor: PhD, pre-tenure work & published research (Note that there are less-qualified people teaching in universities that are compensated much less.)
Nurse practitioner: Master's degree (undergraduate plus 2 years)
Anesthesiologist: Undergraduate + medical degree (4 years) + residency (4 years) + possible specialty training.
And I definitely would NOT expect someone without training to be an effective teacher. I'm in awe of what my kids' teachers are able to do. Classroom management is a skill that is incredibly difficult to master.
If a person has a bachelor's degree, they can get a Michigan interim teaching certificate by passing a test. https://www.teachercertificationdegrees.com/certification/mi... Permanent certification then requires 12 hours (1 semester full-time) of courses, or working toward a masters degree would probably give an immediate and permanent bump in pay.
Imagine a random liberal arts graduate: Would it be easier to go into elementary teaching in Michigan or software development?
The teachers I know personally obtained traditional four-plus-year bachelors degrees before applying for jobs. In most cases, they had to do a year or more of subbing before finding a permanent position.
(edit to add: education degrees are very hard to get done in four years, especially with the aiding, student teaching, etc.)
It is harder to measure a cost on society inflicted by poorly educated students than it is to measure the cost of buggy, failing commercial software. Also, students who were academic failures are not necessarily guaranteed to fail in life, since there are ways to succeed in life other than by being good at school subjects, whereas an incorrect software program can never succeed.
The same holds true even inside the same field. It depends whether you are near a cash cow or a cost center. Working on infrastructure, building tooling for other developers is not likely to be rewarded as well as writing code that could cost your company millions if there is a bug.
There are also differences in specialization. An average game dev is probably going to make less than an average mobile dev, who in turn is going to make less than what a random quant makes.
I actually believe a greater percentage of the population, by far, is CAPABLE of this, but very few choose a path that gives them a self idealization that they believe they can or want to be a computer expert of any sort.
Not many people can play bagpipes, so supply is low. But not many people will pay to hear bagpipes, so demand is low, too. Bagpiping doesn't pay well.
Nearly everyone needs food cooked, so demand is high. But nearly everyone can cook, so supply is high, too. Cooking doesn't pay well.
Not many people can do surgery, so supply is low. Many people need surgery, so demand is high. Surgery pays well.
Supply and demand explains why surgeons make more than teachers, why basketball stars make more than nurses, and why programmers make more than janitors. It isn't about how hard something is or how noble it is. It's just supply and demand.
These market distortions affect the prices and thus the salaries in various ways. Teacher shortages show that the wage is not sensitive to the supply and demand for teachers. Do people shop around for price on needed surgeries? Do they even know the price before receiving the surgery? Do they even pay the price of the surgery? (usually paying some subsidized part of a contractually limited price).
Basketball stars show another market distortion, particularly in college basketball. The player salary is not governed by supply and demand, but by the cartel of college sports (though colleges do compete on non-salary benefits they provide...)
You could assert that these factors just inflate or reduce the supply or the demand, but it's not simply "lots of people want but few provide therefore it pays well".
FTFY
Generally only specialized teaching areas require a master's degree.
A Bachelors and a teacher training program w/ possible test is generally sufficient - and you can usually begin teaching with an interim/provisional certificate, and work on the certification as you go.
https://www.teacher.org/how-to-become/ https://www.alleducationschools.com/teacher-certification/
