Salaries of public college chiefs rise, median tops $400,000

<p>I know, soccerguy, but every time I point out that this borrowing is generational theft, people act like I’m a criminal.</p>

<p>Private U presidents make much more than many publics. POOF. And that silly what does the US president make argument was old when they used it on Babe Ruth and made as much sense then.</p>

<p>Owning a small piece of a fund that has a small piece of Sallie Mae is hardly a conflict of interest at any realistic level. Utter BS.</p>

<p>Not really so much with the POOF. I actually mentioned that AND the fact that I don’t think places giving out these kinds of million dollar salaries ought to be tax exempt. I don’t care if you say it’s a not for profit. More like it’s not a publicly traded company. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>The mission should be to reduce the cost of education to the student, at least in part, not to find more ways to fleece these kids out of their future earnings. Same old generation boomer. “I got mine, too bad for you guys.” :rolleyes:</p>

<p>@poet,</p>

<p>The base salaries for public univ prez are not in the millions but in the mid hundred of thousands. Some of the high figures being reported by the press include one-offs like severence pay.</p>

<p>what does POOF stand for?</p>

<p>I think POOF meant that made my perspective irrelevant.</p>

<p>[Executive</a> Compensation at Public Colleges, FY 2012 - Leadership & Governance - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Executive-Compensation-at/139093#id=table]Executive”>http://chronicle.com/article/Executive-Compensation-at/139093#id=table)</p>

<p>Looking at this, we do find some correlation between the highest instate tuitions and the highest paid Presidents. Not one to one. But it is certainly there.</p>

<p>Yes, GMT, I was referring to the “private” tax-exempt universities who are paying million dollar salaries to their presidents, which was in response to Barron’s post.</p>

<p>Politicians don’t run for state governor position to get salary compensation. They would lose money if they do so. Their pocket money for political campaigns is probably higher than the salary. Guess what they receive in return?</p>

<p>Generational theft is the best description of what it is.</p>

<p>Yes. It’s a pattern of greed. Get other people to borrow money to pay you more money. Get taxpayers involved in paying you and guaranteeing you more money. We see it in banking, and we see it here, now, too.</p>

<p>People in the United States used to care about things other than money. We care too much about money, now, and it is hurting our kids, has hurt our kids. We used to want to provide educational opportunities, but now, we want to get as much money from the students as possible. We used to want to make sure everyone could afford a home, too.</p>

<p>No generation has monetized the “American Dream” like the boomers, at the expense of their own children. It’s very, very sad.</p>

<p>I’m new to this site and would like some help. how do i post questions? I can’t seem to find the option…</p>

<p>At the top of any forum page, like this is the parent’s forum, there is a start new thread button. </p>

<p>So, if you want to ask something in the parents forum, close this thread and go to the top of the page. Or if you want to post in college search and selection, go there and to the top of the posts.</p>

<p>It might make more sense, then, to benchmark univ prez base salaries to those of large non-profits which need to fundraise, like the Am Red Cross or United Way. Those organization heads have base salaries in the mid to upper 100’s.</p>

<p>My neighbor, gentleman in his late 50’s early 60’s, Superintendent of average local High school, he earns 350,000 a year, can retire at any time, get rehired locally as an interim superintendent, similar salary, with his retirement package intact. Funny the other day, he asked to borrow our lawn mower to cut his grass. </p>

<p>My kids wont have meaningful employment when they come out with degrees.
Several of my D friends all with their BS in Engineering, recently returned to school to become physician assistants. Couldn’t find jobs as engineers. All are incurring further debt on top of their first BS degrees.</p>

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<p>But they AREN’T paid by taxpayers, at least not for the most part. That’s just a profound misconception. As my previous post indicated, Michigan taxpayers contribute 6% of the University of Michigan’s budget. The President’s salary is just under $1 million, and 6% of $1 million is $60,000. So for less than $60,000, the taxpayers of Michigan are getting the CEO of a $5.5 billion (annual) enterprise that employs 25,000 people and generates additional billions in secondary economic impacts and hundreds of millions in state tax revenue. The taxpayers aren’t being ripped off, they’re getting an incredible bargain. </p>

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<p>Not sure what you mean by “accountabilities.” As for job responsibilities, I’d say the job responsibilities of Michigan’s governor are probably greater than those of the president of a major research university, but I wouldn’t exactly old up the nation’s governors as a model of successful CEOs. Most of them, in my view, are dismal failures. Many are abject political hacks who are in way over their heads. Some are abject political hacks in way over their heads who get lucky for a while; politics and the economy happen to bounce in their favor, and so they get reelected, maybe even twice if they’re really lucky. Some get reelected like clockwork because partisan politics in their state are so heavily weighted in their party’s favor that it’s pretty much guaranteed they’ll get reelected unless, as someone once said, “they’re caught having sex with a dead girl or a live boy.”</p>

<p>But being governor is a high-profile job and it comes with some real power, so you’ll always find a long line of egomaniacs and power-mad politicians and self-promoting hustlers willing to take that job for pay that is clearly not commensurate with the responsibilities involved, if we were actually looking to hire a competent CEO for the position. And most of the time, we pretty much get what we’re willing to pay for. </p>

<p>There are exceptions. I happen to believe my own state’s governor, Mark Dayton, is doing a pretty good job, but he certainly doesn’t do it for the money. He lives off inherited wealth: his family built the Dayton’s department store chain in Minnesota, which eventually became the Target Corporation. His salary as governor is . . . well, beneath him, in a way, which is why he gives part of it back as a magnanimous gesture, but also not-so-subtly signaling that it’s not the salary that draws him to the job. He serves out of a lifelong commitment to public service.</p>

<p>Or take Michigan’s current governor, Rick Snyder. I disagree with him on a lot of things, but I do think he’s a competent manager. That’s because he was a successful entrepreneur and corporate executive before he ever entered politics. He ran, not for the salary which represents an enormous pay cut for him, but because he thought his business acumen and managerial skills could translate well into running the state, and he sold voters on that premise. Why would he make such a financial sacrifice? Well, like Dayton, he doesn’t need the money at this point in his career. Also like Dayton, he’s probably motivated by a genuine commitment to public service. Then, too, both men are probably driven by ego–vanity, one might say. In my experience most politicians are; they have a narcissistic need to be recognized, admired, and praised, they genuinely believe they can do a better job than anyone else, and they want to have their superiority acknowledged and validated by the news media, the general public, and by voters at the ballot box, and ultimately by historians. As between the two, Snyder is probably the more ambitious politician at this point, harboring dreams of the White House or at least a VP slot, though he’d probably settle for a high-visibility Cabinet position. Dayton is nearing the end of a long political career that has had its ups and downs, and just wants it to end well.</p>

<p>Bottom line, though, both these guys are politicians. They are, IMO, at the upper end of what you can expect in a governor. But I’d never want either one of them, or anyone like them, running my university. Most politicians have a tin ear for the rarefied alternative political universe of academic politics, as do most corporate CEOs. Some schools have experimented with installing politicians, corporate CEOs, even Army generals as university president; most of those experiments have been abject failures. I’m not saying being a successful president of a major research university is necessarily harder than being governor, or CEO of a large corporation, or a top military commander; only that it requires a different skill set, one that is attuned to the complexities of academic politics. Most politicians, corporate CEOs, and military officers come into a university environment expecting to have a great deal of authority to command, but universities are not set up that way. The power of a university president comes almost entirely from the power to persuade and to inspire. </p>

<p>For the Mark Daytons and Rick Snyders and Michael Bloombergs of this world, that’s not enough. There’s not enough visibility, not enough brute power, and not enough narcissistic glory in the job of university president to make it attractive to them, despite the higher pay. But there is the potential to be blamed for screwing it up. The smartest of them know that if they took the job, they’d probably screw up, and the consequence of screwing up is a reputational stain that would forever mar their future careers. Plus, at most institutions there are filters to prevent such jobs from falling into the hands of people who do not understand the academic enterprise, so the politicians probably wouldn’t get the job, even if they went for it.</p>

<p>Maybe you could edit that to a reasonable length for a message board?</p>

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<p>Well, I could break it up into two messages if you’d find that useful.</p>

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<p>But they AREN’T paid by taxpayers, at least not for the most part. That’s just a profound misconception. As my previous post indicated, Michigan taxpayers contribute 6% of the University of Michigan’s budget. The President’s salary is just under $1 million, and 6% of $1 million is $60,000. So for less than $60,000, the taxpayers of Michigan are getting the CEO of a $5.5 billion (annual) enterprise that employs 25,000 people and generates additional billions in secondary economic impacts and hundreds of millions in state tax revenue. The taxpayers aren’t being ripped off, they’re getting an incredible bargain.</p>

<p>Okay, then who are they paid by? </p>

<p>But, mainly, I have to say this: your credibility on this issue would be stronger with me if I didn’t feel your boosterism for the university system interferes with critical thinking. Even during the worst of the banking greed, the bankers and CEO’s I know were critical and not completely ALWAYS defending the position of the status quo.</p>

<p>So, the fact remains that the system has now become one of grabbing every dime students do or do not have. If you believe this is leading to more tenure, or a better environment for professors or students, that’s fine. I don’t.</p>

<p>I think it is a system which gets increasingly bigger and more expensive in order to feed and support the system itself and not the professors and the students.</p>

<p>If you disagree with me, then we will simply have to agree to disagree, because it definitely looks the same to me as most industries, and at this point it is an industry, unfortunately, which rely on other people’s borrowing money in order to survive.</p>

<p>I don’t think he typed it on his phone…</p>

<p>[Amid</a> tougher times, spending on payroll soars at Michigan universities | Detroit Free Press | freep.com](<a href=“http://www.freep.com/article/20110327/NEWS06/103270503/Amid-tougher-times-spending-payroll-soars-Michigan-universities]Amid”>http://www.freep.com/article/20110327/NEWS06/103270503/Amid-tougher-times-spending-payroll-soars-Michigan-universities)</p>

<p>From the article:</p>

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<p>for detailed stats on Michigan System:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.freep.com/article/20110327/NEWS06/110325057[/url]”>http://www.freep.com/article/20110327/NEWS06/110325057&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>As you can easily see, the percent raise in faculty pay at Ann Arbor is 18.2% and the percent raise in administrative pay is 26.9%.</p>