Do Hong Kong highschool teachers earn more than Hong Kong quants? According to Teach in Hong Kong, Hong Kong highschool teachers earn around


  HK\$23,530 to HK\$54,665 (approximately \$3,000-\$7,000 USD) per month


while CUHK's Quantitative Finance Graduates Face Encouraging Employment Status (2004) says Hong Kong quants, at least those who are fresh graduates, have an initial


  average monthly salary of HK$13,291.


Is there anything suspicious about this? I would expect quants to earn more than highschool teachers. Then again, the figure for quants is for fresh grads while the figure for highschool teachers is for those who have at least 2 years teaching experience and with education degrees (eg PGDE).
As you said it doesn’t make sense to compare entry level finance jobs with non-entry level normal jobs. Salary increase in finance is usually quite large - also many have bonus schemes, which many statistics leave out of the “average salary”. Over time definitely the Quant will make more than the school teacher.