4 Highest-Paid University Presidents Top $800,000 a Year
By TAMAR LEWIN

Published: November 10, 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/education/10PAY.html

Four presidents of private universities were paid more than $800,000 last year, and the era of the million-dollar college president is fast approaching, according to an annual survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Over all, 27 presidents of private universities earned at least a half-million dollars in the fiscal year, the same number as in the previous year.

The nation's highest-paid university president — Shirley Ann Jackson, who heads the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y., — received $891,400 in pay and benefits in the last fiscal year, in addition to more than a half-million dollars for serving on corporate boards.

Gordon Gee of Vanderbilt University was paid $852,023, and Judith Rodin of the University of Pennsylvania received $845,474, about the same amount, including severance pay, that Arnold J. Levine earned at Rockefeller University when he stepped down last year after questions about his relationship with a female student.

At all the highest-paying universities, presidential compensation has increased at least twice as much as faculty pay over the last five years: at the University of Pennsylvania, however, from 2000-1 to 2001-2, the average professor's pay increased faster than President Rodin's compensation.

"It seems to me that the pay of faculty ought to be the benchmark," said Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose, Calif. "Even though the president starts at a higher level, there's no reason why the percentage increase for presidents shouldn't be the same as for faculty."

Public universities tend to pay their presidents substantially less than private universities, but the gap may be closing. According to this year's survey, 12 public university presidents — twice as many as last year — were paid more than $500,000.

"This is certainly not helpful at a time when public higher education is facing fiscal stringency, raising tuition by double-digit numbers," Mr. Callan said. "It's particularly hard for these high-paid presidents to go to the legislature and make the case for higher funding."

Mary Sue Coleman, who became president of the University of Michigan in August 2002, will get $677,500 this academic year, making her the highest-paid president of a public university. Just over a quarter of the public university presidents were paid more than $400,000, the survey found.

With many states raising tuition and slashing their budgets for higher education, legislators are showing increasing discomfort about the rising pay for college presidents. In Florida this year, legislators imposed a cap on the state's pay for public university presidents. And a bill under consideration in Ohio would limit the state contribution to university presidents' salaries to the $130,292 the governor earns. About a third of public university presidents received some of their pay from private sources, the survey found.

Presidential pay at the nation's liberal arts colleges is substantially lower. According to the survey, the highest-paid president of such colleges, Russell K. Osgood of Grinnell College, received $480,000 in pay and benefits, and only he, Larry P. Arnn of Hillsdale College and Nancy S. Dye of Oberlin College earned more than $400,000.

[from NYT]