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November 17, 2008, 02:14 PM ET
As Economy Sours, Presidential Pay Draws Increased Scrutiny
The price of leadership continues to rise in higher education, particularly for public-university presidents. According to The Chronicle’s latest survey of executive compensation, median pay and benefits rose 7.6 percent in 2007-8, to $427,400, for the leaders of 184 public research universities.
Many of the nation’s wealthiest private institutions also had big pay increases at the top. And some community-college leaders, who earn far less than their four-year peers, made big strides in the past year.
Over all, compensation stayed relatively flat at private research universities but rose about 6 percent at private master’s and at bachelor’s institutions, the survey found.
Presidents of public research universities, who have traditionally earned less money than their private-college counterparts, are gaining ground. Fourteen public universities paid their top officials more than $700,000 in total compensation in 2007-8, the survey found. In 2006-7, just eight public-university leaders earned that much.
And it is not just the richest institutions that are putting more money in their leaders’ pockets. Presidents at nearly one-third, or 59, of the public research institutions surveyed earned total compensation of more than $500,000 in 2007-8. (Among private college presidents, 89 earned $500,000 or more in 2006-7, about a 10-percent increase from the year before.)
E. Gordon Gee of Ohio State University was the highest-paid public-university president in the 2008 academic year. Including a $310,000 bonus announced this month, he brought in $1,346,225. Only three private-college leaders made more in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available: David J. Sargent, of Suffolk University ($2,800,461); Henry S. Bienen, of Northwestern University ($1,742,560), and Lee C. Bollinger, of Columbia University ($1,411,894).
Read more. Also be sure to check out all the articles in The Chronicle’s special supplement on executive compensation.
Categories: Salary-and-benefits
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