Wanted: Investment bankers. Earn top-notch salary in glamorous, exciting industry. Signing bonus available now.

Wanted: Public school teachers. Must endure low pay, crumbling schools, unruly charges and minimal respect.

For most Harvard students, it hasn't been a tough choice to make. As the economy has surged, huge numbers of graduating seniors have entered fields like banking and Internet technology, lured by meaty salaries and major prestige. Teaching has been literally a poor cousin, unable to match big corporations in power or pay.

"If you want to make money, there is a well-paved avenue available to you," writes R. Hunter Pierson '01, a prospective teacher, in an e-mail message. "It's called 'Harvard recruiting.'"

But the gap may finally be starting to close. Faced with a looming teacher shortage--the nation's schools will need about 2.2 million new teachers over the next seven years, according to the American Association of Colleges for Teachers of Education--federal and state governments are stepping up recruitment.

Two years ago, Massachusetts became the first state to offer a signing bonus of $20,000 to new teachers, including recent college grads, as well as intensive summer training and accelerated accreditation. Other programs, like the popular Teach for America, a national teachers' corps, make it easier for graduates to enter school systems while also giving the teaching profession an intangible sheen of prestige.

Those efforts may be starting to pay off as more and more Harvard seniors seriously consider teaching after college.

"The number of people I have talked to about teaching as a profession has been steadily rising in the last three years," says Dena O. Rakoff, an adviser at the Office of Career Services who specializes in education.