College presidents are flunking the salary test
COLLEGE PRESIDENTS are treating American education like it’s Wall Street. At least the excessive salaries and bonuses on Wall Street are just about greed in a business based on greed. But university presidents are the role model we entrust our children to. We assume that tens of thousands of dollars later, we will be repaid on graduation day with an advanced life-form, brimming with thoughtfulness, creativity, and caring, and the ability to find the washing machine and converse about issues other than money.
We are not paying to have our presidents and chancellors ape
Second in the nation was the ridiculous compensation of nearly $1.5 million for Suffolk University’s David Sargent. MIT’s Susan Hockfield, Boston University’s Robert Brown, Northeastern’s Joseph Aoun, and Brandeis’s Jehuda Reinharz made between $710,000 and $876,000. That made the $694,000 for Harvard’s Drew Faust look like she’s getting chumped at the most influential university in the world. Is it possible that even she, as oft is joked at Harvard, eats prestige?
Not really, of course. They all are eating our lunch. This is merely the latest in unconscionable news about salaries mushrooming way beyond inflation.
Last year, the Chronicle reported that the presidents of the nation’s 184 public research universities enjoyed a collective pay raise of 7.6 percent, to a median of $427,000. With public college presidents being more sensitive to student and taxpayer outrage during the recession, many have been forced to mute their growing elitism by donating their bonuses to student aid or not taking raises.
Still, the comfort for both pubic and private presidents bears no resemblance to the world beneath them. The American Dream is being fogged as parents drown in debt, students spend more time working to pay off campus fees rather than studying, and professors try to feed the brains of students with slashed resources. Yet, 23 private colleges now pay their presidents more than $1 million. None did so in 2002. The number of colleges charging more than $50,000 a year for a full ride multiplied by nearly 12 times in just the last 12 months, from five to 58.
This is a parallel universe to how the nation’s top 23 investment firms and banks are about to grant their staffs a record $140 billion in compensation, according to the Wall Street Journal. This is despite them nearly ruining the country and jacking up taxpayers for a $700 billion bailout while unemployment surpasses 10 percent.
In a very real sense, you and I bail out public and private universities every day. Federal funds account for $31.2 billion, or 60 percent of the $51.9 billion universities spent on science and engineering research in fiscal 2008, according to the National Science Foundation. The 62 top public and private research universities in the Association of American Universities spend 3 1/2 times more federal dollars on academic research than what they spend themselves.
As a former adjunct professor at a private college, I have no qualm with decent salaries for quality presidents, but not one-year raises of 15.5 percent when most American households have less mean income in 2008 dollars than 10 years ago, and when the four-year cost at many private colleges has soared past the national median price for existing homes.
For starters, private university presidents should make no more than what the families are paying. With the four-year cost now commonly $200,000, these current million-dollar presidents should show respect for American families by taking home no more than $200,000 a year. That is still a nice payday for them, and the $800,000 left over would sure help many more Americans achieve the American Dream.
Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com. 
