Thank you. My ultimate goal is to teach, to pass on the knowledge to the next generations. You are correct to about the 6 figures in the IT field, although those positions are increasingly going the way of the dodo. Companies are using visas to bring in IT educated immigrants to lower costs. Those positions that are out there are ones that are calling for decades of experience and most have a list of obscure or out of date technologies that you must know.
It's a jungle out there....lol
It is all about where you want to go and what you are willing to do to get and keep the jobs that are available. The company I work for employs some "IT educated immigrants" but they only represent a small fraction of the total workforce and those I've worked with have a work ethic that is hard to beat.
The key thing to remember is that one has to be willing to grow and move on to make more money in IT. If one stays on at a help desk for years on end and have no intention to push upward into management then its hard to blame guys from India for low wages. I started as an unpaid intern working a pizza job and going to school with a new baby daughter. When others went home and gave up on problems, I stayed and found the answers to them. It is not easy but it is a choice; complain and give up or do what you have to do.
I went to school with a guy, a good friend of mine, who was ex military, his wife was in jail for drug use, and he had walk across town sometimes to take his daughter to preschool just so he could go to school. He was a black single father who didn't have a car and little money and I never once heard him complain or bellyache, he did what he had to do and it was an honor to graduate with him.
Don't wait for someone to hand you the answer, go find it, don't wait for someone to give you what you want go get it.