From the Chronicle of Higher Education
http://www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensation
When 98 public college presidents make more than $500,000 per year, I will believe that public funding of higher education is a crisis when their leaders act like it is a crisis.
It is good to be cynical when public funds are being used. However, I think we should distinguish between executives who are worth that much money and executives who are not. Those public universities are big entities. A chief executive can make or break a university.
I think we should go after athletics departments that are consistently making a loss (the ones that make a profit are fine).
Elite universities are like Fortune 100 companies - multibillion-dollar endowments, masses of real estate holdings, scientific investment, cultural and civic responsibilities – not exactly a breeze to manage. Few people are capable of doing it, much less doing it well. And those who can are quite reasonable to ask for industry-level salaries. It’s how capitalism works.
I can’t imagine why executives who manage all the things mentioned here would make significantly less than those who manage, IDK, hedge funds or large real estate companies. (And $500K sounds like they make MUCH less than those CEOs).
I suppose some people would rather have presidents of giant universities make 5 figures, just like some managers of billions of dollars in public pension funds do.
Let’s just say that that has not turned out well (and will turn out worse in the future).
No one who will run these universities competently is going to be taking less. Even in the current system they still have far higher earnings potential in industry.
That’s DEFINITELY not the case in the public university where I work. I’m guessing that the presidents who make that much are skilled at bringing in donations at X times salary. It’s a factor that’s certainly monitored.
The criticism of executive pay tends to be greater when a well paid executive performs poorly, whether in a typical company, a non profit, or public entity. Of course, predicting how an executive will perform at hiring time is not necessarily easy.
University pay is generally lower than the private sector, but job security, benefits, pensions and work life balance are a lot better. Take away the top 10 highly compensated individuals (e.g. president, football coach, hospital head) and you have a different picture.
@TooOld4School, we’re comparing public and private unis, where all that stuff at privates tends to be as good or better.
@PurpleTitan , can you compare the job load and staffing levels between public and private unis? I’d love to hear from people who have worked at both.
@toooldforschool: At top research U’s, very similar.
I believe @dfbdfb and others have worked at both.
You can’t just compare public vs. private, because course load, salary and service requirements can vary from type of public school - community college vs state college vs. state university vs. state u flagship.
At the top private colleges, you could get qualified candidates to be a college president for free for the same reason someone would quit being CEO of Goldman to be Secretary of the Treasury at a salary less than they pay their household staff. There’s a certain level of prestige, influence, and respectability associated with those positions.
@roethlisburger: You can sell your stock without paying capital gains tax if you join the cabinet.
And heading a university isn’t exactly the same as serving your country.
Also, former Treasury secretaries have numerous lucrative exit opportunities. Who is going to want a former university president besides other universities?
^D.E. Shaw
@roethlisburger: One guy who is a fairly renown and well-connected economist who had served as chief economist for the World Bank as well as other influential governmental positions even before becoming Harvard president.
You think that the current Harvard president (who’s a historian) would be able to find as lucrative a gig after her Harvard tenure ends?