Leaders’ pay rises with cost of college

For the second consecutive year, Suffolk’s David J. Sargent ranked among the nation’s highest-paid presidents of private colleges and universities, receiving nearly $1.5 million in salary and benefits, according to an annual survey released today by The Chronicle of Higher Education. His compensation trailed only that of Shirley Ann Jackson of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who took in close to $1.6 million.

Nationwide, one in four presidents of private colleges earns more than $500,000, according to the survey. Among all presidents, median pay rose 6.5 percent to $358,746 in the fiscal year that ended in 2008, the latest available figures from federal tax filings.

Median pay for presidents at major private research universities surged by more than 15 percent to $627,000.

Sargent isn’t the only college president in Greater Boston with a hefty pay package. Others include MIT’s Susan Hockfield ($875,632), Boston University’s Robert A. Brown ($804,639), Northeastern’s Joseph Aoun ($737,863), Brandeis’s Jehuda Reinharz ($709,965), and Harvard’s Drew Faust ($693,739).

Suffolk University officials and the survey’s authors noted that Sargent’s compensation figures are inflated by $523,200 in bonuses that were reported in a filing made public last fall, when Sargent’s nation-leading $2.8 million total in 2007 was roundly criticized as excessive.

“A significant part of President Sargent’s total compensation was reported twice, although he will receive it only once,’’ said university spokesman Greg Gatlin.

Nonprofit organizations, including colleges, are required to report deferred and actual income each year to the Internal Revenue Service. Comparisons among packages can be misleading because of one-time payments and retirement benefits.

Sargent’s staggering total that was reported last year, for instance, was largely the result of a longevity bonus and deferred payments that together exceeded $1 million.

Discounting the $523,000 reported last year, Sargent still earned close to $1 million, a sum that surpassed presidents’ earnings at prestigious and wealthier institutions such as Harvard, Duke, and Stanford universities. He earned $449,000 in base salary and $465,000 in deferred compensation in fiscal 2008.

For fiscal year 2009, Sargent, who is in his 20th year as president of the Beacon Hill university, received an estimated $809,000. University officials have said his salary is commensurate with his lengthy tenure and success in taking the school to new heights, and that deferred payments and bonuses are designed to rectify years of below-average wages. Sargent, whose five-year contract expires in 2011, waived a $90,000 bonus this year, Gatlin said.

That mirrored a national trend, the survey found. Facing budget woes brought on by plummeting endowment returns, and rising public anger over high administrative salaries, colleges have sought to trim expenses.

“While the pay of private-college presidents continues to increase, our reporting shows that the economy is clearly having an impact on their paycheck,’’ said Jeffrey J. Selingo, editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Presidents are giving back some of their pay or trustees are freezing salaries. Both groups are worried about how the public perceives a high salary at a time when budgets are being slashed and tuition continues to increase.’’

The survey found that 58 private colleges charge students more than $50,000 for tuition and room and board, compared with just five last year.

Suffolk raised tuition 4.8 percent for this academic year, its smallest increase in three decades. It steered the additional revenue into financial aid, part of a recent push. Full-time undergraduates pay $27,000 a year without financial aid.

Sargent does not receive university housing or a housing allowance and has pledged more than $1 million in donations to the school, Gatlin added.