According to a report just released by The Chronicle of Higher Education, the nation’s three highest-earning public college presidents are no longer in their posts. Often university presidents reap the greatest rewards when they leave their jobs because they receive severance, deferred compensation or other rewards. The top earner: Rodney A. Erickson, president of Pennsylvania State University from November 2011 to May 2014. His total compensation of $1,494,603 included the $586,000 balance of a university-sponsored life-insurance plan that the school had terminated.
The second-highest-earner, R. Bowen Loftin, who had the top job at Texas A&M University at College Station from February 2010 to January 2014, raked in a severance package of $850,000, which went a long way toward boosting his total compensation to $1,128,957. Some schools opt to pay big exit packages in exchange for agreements by departing presidents that they will not bring any future legal claims.
In third place, Joseph A. Alutto was interim president of Ohio State University for just under a year, from July 2013 to June 2014. His compensation: $996,169. That included a generous bonus of $361,507. He stepped in after the sudden departure of 2013’s highest-paid public university president, E. Gordon Gee, who took home more than $5 million when he left OSU, including a large severance award. Gee, widely regarded as a masterful fundraiser, departed suddenly after a series of malapropisms, including one criticizing Catholic leaders at Notre Dame. He is now president of West Virginia University,
Penn State’s Erickson garnered both major kudos and heated controversy along with his big payday. A 37-year veteran of the university, he delayed his own retirement and took charge when Penn State was reeling from the explosive Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal. Erickson’s predecessor, Graham Spanier, still faces a criminal indictment for charges ranging from child endangerment to perjury and conspiring to cover up Sandusky’s crimes. (Spanier has denied the charges and filed a defamation suit against former FBI director Louis Freeh, who issued a damning report on the scandal.) Erickson steered Penn State through very rocky terrain, including the Freeh report and stiff, controversial sanctions on the school’s football program. Erickson’s replacement is former Florida state president Eric Barron.
The Chronicle also notes that Spanier, along with 42 other former college presidents, is still receiving compensation from his former employer. According to the Chronicle, he earned more than any public university president--nearly $2.3 million--last year. A Penn State spokeswoman says he has been on administrative leave since November 2012 and that his employment agreement entitled him to one year’s sabbatical and five years at a $600,000 salary as a tenured faculty member. He is also receiving a payout from the life insurance program divestiture.
According to the Chronicle, the typical college president earned $428,000 last year, nearly 3.8 times more than the average full-time professor and 7% more than the median for college presidents in fiscal 2013. Adjuncts, who make up an increasingly large share of university teaching staff (47% in 2013 according to the American Association of University Professors, while grad students comprise 12% of the teaching staff) make a fraction of what full-time professors earn and peanuts compared to university presidents. Adjuncts bring home as little as $900-$5,000 per course, according to John Barshaw, a senior researcher at the American Association of University Professors.
A year ago a report by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning Washington, DC think tank, showed that the 25 public universities with the highest-paid presidents had the fastest-growing levels of student debt and the most rapidly expanding adjunct faculties. The report looked at the period between 2005 and 2012. Says the report: “Administrative spending outstripped scholarship spending by more than two to one at state schools with the highest-paid presidents.”
While universities maintain that presidents’ compensation is a minimal share of overall university budgets, there is increasing protest in some quarters about bloated presidential pay. The Illinois State Democratic Caucus issues a report in May that criticized the cash bonuses, country club memberships and housing and vehicles that many college presidents receive on top of generous base salaries. The Chronicle report documents some of these perks, like the university-owned house University of Illinois at Chicago president Paula Allen-Meares enjoyed and the $450,000 in deferred compensation she got when she left her post in January 2015.
How do private university presidents compare? According to a report the Chronicle released in December about earnings in fiscal 2012, the median salary for private presidents was $400,000, lower than for public university bosses, though the presidents at the top of the list made much more than public presidents. The top three private university earners:
Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute , July 1999 - current, $7,143,312
John L. Lahey, Quinnipiac University, March 1987 - current, $3,759,076
Lee C. Bollinger, Columbia University, June 2002 - current, $3,389,917
You have to go down eight rungs, to NYU’s John Sexton, who made $1,404,484, before you get to Erickson’s level at Penn State.
Here is the list of the 10 highest-paid public university presidents. For the full list of 238 presidents click here.
1. Rodney A. Erickson, Pennsylvania State University, November 2011 - May, 2014, $1,494,603
2. R. Bowen Loftin, Texas A&M University at College Station, February 2010 - January, 2014, $1,128,957
3. Joseph A. Alutto, Ohio State University, July 2013 - June, 2014 $996,169
4. Elson S. Floyd, Washington State University, May 2007 - current, $877,250
5. Paula Allen-Meares, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chancellor and Vice President, January 2009 - January, 2015, $872,458
6. Francisco G. Cigarroa, University of Texas system. February 2009 - December, 2014, $864,660
7. Renu Khator, University of Houston, Chancellor UH System and UH President, January 2008 – current, $850,000
8. Patrick T. Harker, University of Delaware, President, July 2007 - June, 2015, $800,156
9. Charles W. Steger, Virginia Tech, President, January 2000 - May, 2014, $745,195
10. Robert E. Witt, University of Alabama, March 2012 - current, $745,000
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