How families pay for college
41 percent enrolled in four-year public colleges in 2014
34 percent enrolled in two-year public colleges in 2014
31 percent grants and scholarships
30 percent parent income and savings
15 percent student borrowing
12 percent student income and savings
7 percent parent borrowing
4 percent relatives and friends
How students cut costs to afford college
66 percent reduced spending
61 percent lived closer to home
41 percent living away from home got a roommate
28 percent accelerated course work
Source: Sallie Mae and Ipsos Public Affairs, “How Families Paid for College 2014”
Average national spending on college, 2013-14
2-year public $11,012
4-year public $21,072
4-year private, $34,855
Source: Sallie Mae and Ipsos Public Affairs, “How Families Paid for College 2014”
Top public college presidents’ total compensation, fiscal 2014
Pennsylvania State U. at University Park; $1,494,603++(included life-insurance payout)
Texas A&M U. at College Station; $1,128,957*++(included severance payment)
Ohio State U.; $996,169++
Washington State U.; $877,250
U. of Illinois at Chicago; $872,458++
*Amount for president serving only part of FY 2014
++ Amount for president no longer leading the institution
Georgia’s top presidents, total compensation, fiscal 2014
Georgia State University; $530,600
University of Georgia; $450,000
Georgia Tech; $440,000
Georgia’s neighbors, total compensation, fiscal 2014
University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa; $670,000
Louisiana State University; $600,000
University of Florida; $564,553
University of South Carolina at Columbia; $531,200
University of Tennessee at Knoxville; $434,452
Average national spending on college, 2013-14
2-year public $11,012
4-year public $21,072
4-year private, $34,855
Source: Sallie Mae and Ipsos Public Affairs, “How Families Paid for College 2014”
Top public college presidents’ total compensation, fiscal 2014
Pennsylvania State U. at University Park; $1,494,603++(included life-insurance payout)
Texas A&M U. at College Station; $1,128,957*++(included severance payment)
Ohio State U.; $996,169++
Washington State U.; $877,250
U. of Illinois at Chicago; $872,458++
*Amount for president serving only part of FY 2014
++ Amount for president no longer leading the institution
Georgia’s top presidents, total compensation, fiscal 2014
Georgia State University; $530,600
University of Georgia; $450,000
Georgia Tech; $440,000
Georgia’s neighbors, total compensation, fiscal 2014
University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa; $670,000
Louisiana State University; $600,000
University of Florida; $564,553
University of South Carolina at Columbia; $531,200
University of Tennessee at Knoxville; $434,452
The outcry was instant last month when two state college presidents received pay raises that pushed their total compensation over $1 million a year.
Critics accused college administrators of being tone deaf in a time of rising college costs, increasing student loan debt and almost stagnant wages for faculty and staff. There were even calls for the presidents to return some, if not all, of their pay increases.
Despite the outcry for financial restraint, the state’s university leaders say the payments are necessary in a higher education industry that has come to resemble corporate America. The pool of highly qualified candidates able to not only lead but help a school thrive is small, and competition is fierce.
Like treasured corporate employees, underpay your college presidents and you’re almost certain to lose them, education officials say. That was the concern that fueled the increases for Presidents Bud Peterson at Georgia Tech and Mark Becker at Georgia State, who were earning less than the leaders of comparable schools.
Key in last month's increases for Peterson and Becker were a mix of state and university foundation dollars that will be used to fund salary and deferred compensation increases boosting the annual pay for each to just over $1 million. Jere Morehead, the president at the University of Georgia, also received a pay bump to $811,348 for fiscal 2016, which begins July 1.
» SEE FOR YOURSELF: Compare Georgia college tuition vs. presidential pay packages with our interactive chart and searchable database
» PHOTOS: Who are Georgia's top 10 highest-paid public college presidents?
Because higher education in general is becoming so complex and difficult, there is a market for very successful presidents, University System Chancellor Hank Huckaby told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Huckaby steadfastly defends the pay raises as retention methods.
“If you look at the three top presidents, particularly at Georgia Tech and Georgia State, it is market-driven. These recommended salary increases, which the board and their respective foundations supported, is in response to the market,” he said.
“Both (Peterson) and Mark Becker are hot properties, so if that smacks of corporate America, so be it. … I would have been derelict in my responsibilities if I had not recommended to (the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents) that these two persons be retained.”
A salary survey of public college leaders released Sunday by The Chronicle of Higher Education reported two presidents — at Pennsylvania State University at University Park and Texas A&M University at College Station — received total compensation of more than $1 million. Totals for both those presidents include severance payments. The survey includes information reported for 238 chief executives at 220 public universities and systems for fiscal 2014 and put the average salary at $428,000. For that year, Becker, Morehead and Peterson were top earners in the Peach State, according to Chronicle data, but they earned less than presidents at surrounding state colleges and comparable schools across the country.
“It’s clear that presidents are getting paid more, and it’s no longer just about their salary,” said James Finkelstein, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has studied presidential compensation. “The contracts used to be much simpler. Now they are beginning to look more like a corporate contract might look.”
Part of that reason, Finkelstein said, is that presidents are now hiring outside counsel to represent them in employment negotiations, more executive search firms have emerged for higher education positions and college presidents closely watch how much their colleagues make.
“It’s not unlike coaches who have a winning season,” he said. “They keep close tabs on each other, and the salaries keep going up.”
But while there are some examples of “professional presidents” who move from one large institution to another — such as Gordon Gee, who has been the president of Brown University, the University of Colorado, Ohio State University and West Virginia University, as well as chancellor of Vanderbilt University — most are not continually moving from place to place, Finkelstein said. “So I haven’t seen anything that justifies this corporate mentality that you have to pay them more to keep them.”
A national comparison of Georgia’s latest pay increase will have to be done later as national data become available, but Chronicle researchers said having two presidents in the same state with compensation exceeding $1 million is rare.
The pay increases come at a time of increased scrutiny of higher education institutions, as leaders from every level of government from President Barack Obama to state and local governments are pushing for more accountability from colleges and universities. No longer acceptable to merely enroll high numbers of students, colleges and presidents are now being measured in more corporate terms such as student outcomes.
“At no time in the last century has the discrepancy between the highest paid (presidents) and lowest paid (janitors) on our college campuses been so extreme,” said William Tierney, a professor at the University of Southern California who has studied compensation for college presidents. “It does not speak well of nonprofit institutions when they pay their CEOs exorbitant salaries with perks such as chauffeurs, private houses and expense accounts.”
A majority of presidents in Georgia’s University System receive a housing allowance and “subsistence” pay for other job expenses, such as entertainment costs.
“Not only does it ‘look’ bad when they are raising tuition on students and denying faculty and staff raises,” Tierney said, “it is bad.”
In April, incoming University of Texas at Austin President Gregory Fenves turned down a quarter of his $1 million offered base salary because it would be "too high for a public university" and would attract negative attention from students and faculty given the tight budgets of the past five years. Fenves' total compensation, not including bonus pay, would be $800,000, according to news reports. State lawmakers in Illinois released a report last month criticizing the "fantasy world of lavish perks" — including car and housing allowances and large bonuses — paid to public college presidents in that state. A Senate panel is looking to recommend state-run audits and limits on severance pay.
Political science professor Gary Kline, who teaches at Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, sent a letter to Huckaby and the Board of Regents last month after the pay raises were approved, lamenting the pay of presidents compared with the paltry pay of the states' college faculty and staff.
The structure of the state’s University System is more and more resembling a corporation “where CEOs at the top receive the big raises year after year and the cogs at the bottom get nothing,” he said. After 25 years of teaching, Kline says he’s noticed morale among faculty and staff is low and optimism is waning.
“We’re not a corporation. You don’t have to pay millions to the CEO,” Kline said. “We’re higher education, and it seems to a lot of us that the priorities are now to support the administrator when it’s the administrators who should be supporting the teaching and learning functions.”
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