I'm sure you are not classing an agricultural degree as Micky Mouse ... but if you are, that would take some justifying. The £25K and house came after many years of earning a lot less and is pretty much the ceiling when it comes to farm earnings. The airstrip is actually just a grazing field that doubles up, but it is a great perk I must admit. Many farm owners, esp some of the hill farmers make no money at all ... except whatever the Mrs brings home from working the till at Tesco's. The point I was making was that there are many well qualified professionals earning less than £8/hr and nobody seems that concerned. Ok, they don't directly have little Jonny's life in their hands, but many have life bearing influences.
I hope instructors do start to earn decent money ... if they do I'd soon jump ship and become one as I'm getting fed up with 2am starts. Oh and before anyone starts pointing out the downside of instructing I'm well aware of them and believe me ... over some of the jobs I'm thinking about, you could never win that aurgument
As for the instructor shortage ... It's about time we dropped the need to do the CPL papers and came up with a specific test including a teaching element. Then allow PPL's with a reasonable amount of experience to teach to PPL level ... and yes, pay them the going rate so that they don't simply undercut those who are trying to scrape a living. Most (though I realise not all) instructors, do move on to higher payed jobs in the airlines, so to a certain extent the poor pay will eventually be justified. However, I'm not trying to say that is how it should be.
SS