http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031110/ap_on_re_us/college_presidents Salaries of College Presidents Rising While tuition costs keep on rising, so do the salaries of college presidents. A survey of college presidential salaries revealed Monday that the compensation packages given the leaders of four private universities in the 2002 fiscal year topped $800,000. The Chronicle of Higher Education's annual salary report also said that the top officials at 12 public schools are scheduled to earn more than $500,000 in 2003-04. With an annual package of salary and benefits totaling $891,400, Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., was the top earner among college presidents last year, the Chronicle said. The Chronicle said that doesn't include Jackson's compensation for serving on eight corporate boards, which adds an additional $591,000 to her annual income. Closely behind Jackson on the list of top earners among private school presidents were Gordon Gee, the president of Vanderbilt University in Nashville ($852,000), the University of Pennsylvania's Judith Rodin ($845,474) and Arnold Levine of Rockefeller University ($844,600), who has since resigned for health reasons. The Chronicle said the $677,500 that will be paid in salary and benefits in 2003-04 to the University of Michigan's Mary Sue Coleman puts her atop the list of public institution leaders. Coleman is followed on the public schools list by University of Delaware President David Roselle, who will earn $630,654 this academic year and Richard McCormick, who will receive $625,000 to head New Jersey's Rutgers University. During the 2001-02 fiscal year, the Chronicle said, the chief executives of 27 private schools received compensation in excess of $500,000. David Harpool, the president of Argosy University in Chicago, criticized college boards that approve exorbitant salaries for their presidents while saddling students with tuition increases topping 10 percent. "We don't apply any common sense business principles to these decisions," said Harpool, the author of "Survivor College," a book that criticizes nonessential spending on college campuses. The Chronicle compiles its data on the salaries paid the presidents of private institutions by reviewing nonprofit tax forms filed last year by each school. The current salaries of state college and university presidents are determined by reviewing both nonprofit tax forms and the public budgets filed by each institution.
As universities become increasingly corporate, their top-level administrators will see increasing salaries.
he's expensive, but I say Gordon Gee rules.. so he can have whatever portion of the $852,000 I am currently paying him... I actually thought it would be a little higher, when you are basically the CEO of a university with a top notch hospital etc you are going to demand high incomes. That is a small price considering the ability of those top notch chancellors to raise money.. Gee is a big part in the fundraising campaign we have going now to raise I believe 1.25 billion... when you know how to raise money, you demand a high salary... so I dont know that the salary is such a bad thing... it's no different than any other CEO etc
I agree. I teach at a small college where the faculty salaries are among the lowest in Texas. (in other words, only suckers like me are willing to work for this little money) However, they did a study and found out our administrator salaries are well above average (using the same criteria as were used to compare faculty salaries). So that's where it's all going.
when you are dealing with expensive research. faciliites, medical centers etc.. literally billions of dollars how can you not run it like a corporation? gee has a whole lot of contact with students and is a very nice man etc but the bottom line still is you have to have someone at the top who knows how to handle budgets etc.. and those people demand big money..
no edit.. but what I'm saying is.. vanderbilt for instance is the 2nd largest employer in tennessee... wouldn't you expect the head of the 2nd largest employer to make 850k?
Vanderbilt is a private university, though...So that is a little bit different. I have absolutely no problem with the presidents of private universities making so much. Public universities should be, and are lower.
I certainly feel more "right" about having the chancellors make that much than the coaches making millions..
At many of those top schools a "top calibar" chancellor makes a bigger difference fundraising wise than whehter you have a great coach or whatever on the field
