Pay of top university heads hits $1m By Rebecca Knight in Boston
E. Gordon Gee, chancellor of Vanderbilt, a top-tier university in Nashville, Tennessee, has an enviable distinction: he is the only US university head who earns more than $1m a year.
Last year, Mr Gee earned a salary of $905,296 plus $265,915 in benefits and a sizeable expense account.
While his pay far outstrips that of most college leaders, salaries of university presidents – of both public and private institutions – are rising rapidly.
According to an annual survey released on Monday, the number of college and university presidents earning at least $500,000 increased by 53 per cent from the year before. The jump was most pronounced among presidents of public institutions, according to the study conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education .
Top earner at a public university was David Roselle, president of the University of Delaware, who received $979,571 in pay and benefits. Purdue University’s Martin Jischke made $880,950, Mark Emmert of the University of Washington $752,700.
The survey said 70 presidents of private colleges earned more than $500,000 in pay and benefits last year, up from one 10 years ago. Topping the list was Audrey Doberstein, retired president of Wilmington College in Delaware, whose compensation package was $2.7m, much of it retirement pay. Donald Ross, retired president of Lynn University, earned $1.3m last year.
Compensation of college presidents has been under scrutiny in recent years following high-profile abuses by top-ranking officials. Last year, American University publicly ousted Benjamin Ladner, its president, after allegations that he had used university money for personal expenses. An audit last spring of the University of California system uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars in largely unreported pay and perks.
But Claire Van Ummersen, vice-president at the American Council on Education, said such examples were rare. “For the most part, university presidents are moral individuals who would not misspend taxpayer dollars or misuse money from donors,” she said.
Ms Van Ummersen, former president of Cleveland State University and chancellor of the University of New Hampshire system, defended compensation levels. She said the job of a university president was similar to a corporate chief executive.
“These numbers need to be put in perspective,” she said. “In the public sector, presidents that are leading substantial institutions are running budgets worth hundreds of millions of dollars and in some cases budgets worth billions of dollars. These are large and complex institutions. It’s almost like running a small city.”
Jan Greenwood, president of Greenwood & Associates, a consulting firm that specialises in executive searches in higher education, added that boards recognised it was in a college’s best interest to hold on to presidents.
“The general rule of thumb is that when a president leaves, schools lose two to three years of momentum in their fundraising activities because donor relations have to re-established, so boards are incenting presidents to stay,” she said.