Public University Presidential Compensation
The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a survey of public university executive compensation out that a lot of news organizations are citing. The B1G has three of the the top ten: Spanier (PSU) at no. 1, Gee (OSU) at no. 3, and our own Mary Sue Coleman at no. 6. The real head scratcher in the top ten salaries for me is Ball State University's president who is ranked fifth.
http://chronicle.com/article/Executive-Compensation-at/139093/#id=table
Here's the top ten as reported by the AP (their list was easier to copy and paste):
Top 10 recipients, in total compensation, among public college leaders in 2011-12.
1. Graham Spanier (x), Pennsylvania State University, $2,906,271
2. Jay Gogue, Auburn University, $2,542,865
3. E. Gordon Gee, Ohio State University, $1,899,420
4. Alan Merten (x), George Mason University, $1,869,369
5. Jo Ann Gora, Ball State University, $984,647
6. Mary Sue Coleman, University of Michigan, $918,783
7. Charles Steger, Virginia Tech, $857,749
8. Mark Yudof, University of California, $847,149
9. Bernard Machen, University of Florida, $834,562
10. Francisco Cigarroa, University of Texas, $815,833
(x) No longer president.
———Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
[Edit: Nearly half of Spanier's compensation is severance pay]
I graduated in 2008, and I though Mary Sue was 1st or 2nd highest paid then... can't believe that number has more than doubled...
Much of Spanier's is severance pay. If you go to the Chronicle link, you can click on each person and it shows the breakdown of the compensation.
I'm kind of surprised he still gets severance pay given the horrific scandal that occurred under his watch.
Despite (for the major universities) having hundreds of millions or billions in reserve endowments? One reason is the dramatic rise the last 20 years in salaries of college administrators at all levels (this would include head coaches in major sports). As well as the explosion of the number of adminstrators themselves, to the point wehre many schools have more administrators than professors. Think about that. That did not used to be the case.
I think that the old name for "Occupy University" is "tenure."
Yeah, good call. Let's get cheap with the President and Football Coach, the two most public, important, revenue and/or donation driving positions at the University.
Let's save a few hundred thousand on Mary Sue and her billion dollar fundraising campaigns. And no one really cares if we have a good football coach. We don't have any real life case studies of how that scenario plays out. Also it's not like the Athletic Department funds itself. No, these must be the causes of rising tuition.
States cutting university funding is a huge part of the difference, not just paying presidents more money haha. And I don't know where you pulled that stat about more administrators than professors but I refuse to think about it because I think you just made it up.
Needs makes a good point. Across the country, university administration has been a huge growth industry.
I'd like to agree with you; the fundraising aspect of Michigan's Presidency and its football coach dwarfs the dollar-amount of their respective annual salaries. You got that part right. If we had contracted to give Mary Sue Coleman a million-dollar cash bonus for getting us to the goal of the $3.2 billion Michigan Difference campaign, I'd have said she's being underpaid.
Along those same lines, Deadspin made an infographic listing the highest paid public employee for each state.
Wow, that really says something that isn't good. Why my home state and adopted home have basketball coaches as the highest paid employees is disgusting.
Football is much more important.
Exactly what I was thinking. Surprised that Izzo makes more than either football coach or president.
Don't most football programs operate in the red?
I don't know if football programs do (probably not many BCS-conference programs), but most athletic departments as a whole are in the red.
And all of them are vastly overpaid.
MSC led the Michigan Difference campaign which raised $3.2 billion for the University. Her salary is 0.03% of that. I'd say she's earned her pay and then some
Explain what you mean by "led." I know these people help bring in a lot of money and have a lot to manage and all that. I just think those numbers are too high. 8 years ago, the highest paid President was about 750,000 iirc. There is no reason for these salaries to wildly outpace growth in just about every other field in the country.
That's an interesting point. In a number of other fields salary growth hasn't even kept up with inflation (16% over the time period you mention) and in many fields average salaries are even down from eight years ago (e.g. Law).
Mary Sue is incredibly underpaid with respect to other corporate leaders. That's a whole other topic, but I don't have a problem with the university president making a million a year (who as someone noted below, has a ton of responsibility)
But she isn't effectively the CEO, and it doesn't make sense to compare to corporate leaders. This isn't the private sector. That seems to be the point that a some people in this thread are missing.
Ugh the complaining in this thread is incredible.
These presidents, especially at a place like Michigan, with a high-profile athletic department and massive healthcare system in addition to a 40k+ university, manage huge organizations with thousands of employees with billions in revenue, expenses, and research. You can't just expect to hire a solid candidate to lead a massive organization and not pay them. I feel like I am taking crazy pills.
What do you people expect us to pay our university president? She does a lot of shit and she had better be good at it. She is.
Then there's the self-righteous people that act like it's such a travesty to pay top tier football coaches what they receive - get real. It's 5th grade supply and demand. You don't have to show your indignation for the business of collegiate athletics everytime deadspin puts out some infographic you probably already knew the answer to if you had just taken 5 seconds to think about it, while likely complaining about Rich Rod not winning by the end of his 3rd year. But you wonder why they get paid a lot. Dumb.
High-profile atheltic department and massive healthcare system? Can you explain exactly how Coleman interacts with these parts of the University? Is there a good reason why some of these salaries have double or tripled in the last 8-10 years?
These arguments about "well they bring in a lot of money" are so tired. Everyone brings in more for their employer than they earn. This is a public university. It's not Nike or Oracle. Just out of curiousity, what compensation figure do you think would be too high?
I will grant you one thing though. These presidents have done wonders for lowering tuition.
Telling someone to "take a look" at something isn't an argument. It's an errand. Why don't you tell us what the Regents Proceedings reveals about the legitimacy of the presidents pay?
*it's deep into the minutes and on you to find it and convince yourself.
No, I'm not here to be assigned homework.
Like a CEO of a corporation, MSC may not be involved with the day-to-day operations of any particular unit, but that doesn't mean she is not in charge and accountable. The Regents Proceeding are just one example of that, perhaps not the best evidence but that which is most readily accessible to the public.
FWIW, I am sure Graham Spanier wish more people shared your view, because then he'd still have his job.
If I went through this right, the average base salary for Big Ten presidents is just a little north of $550,000 and that accounts for an average of 76% of the total compensation, and this is excluding the peculiar situation with Graham Spanier. In essence, it averages about a $770,000 or so per year job in our conference.
For comparison, as it has been discussed here - the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran an article last month with reported salaries for basketball coaches, and the Big Ten average here is $2.13 million for the known salaries (not all schools report data), and this is before their bonuses for tournament appearances and the like.
But I know that if a football coach sucks (I mean you RR), then that person will be canned. Coaching is competition based. I'm not saying a sports coach should be getting paid millions of dollars, but I don't think that the head of a public institution should be either. I know I paid (am still paying) a LOT for my education at Michigan, and I am not feeling that return on my investment. College these days is WAY OVERPRICED and the HUGE increase in cost doesn't translate into a better education or better jon prospect. This is where our money is going...
I'm sorry you feel you are not getting a quality ROI. I am several tens of thousands dollars in debt and despite this I am happy with my ROI because of the amazing doors that have been opened for me through both the quality of my education and the connections I've made.
You are right, though, that costs are going through the roof. One of the main focuses of the next "Michigan Difference" campaign is going to be tuition and building the general scholarship fund. I sincerely hope that the next President and the Regents make this a focus. They have the ability to really make a statement that rising tuition has to be addressed and stopped. Unfortunately, it looks like they will address that first by building that scholarship fund, but really there needs to be some massive downsizing of administration.
I suppose 'way overpriced' depends on where you're coming from and it depends on what you do with your education. I will now proceed to get offtopic:
If you're going to go spend 60-120k on a college education, it's really an investment where you're saying "Going massively into debt now will be worth it because I expect it to increase my yearly salary enough that it pays off in the long run". If you're going to be an engineer (like me), it's clearly worth it because I'll make enough vs just a high school degree that the debt load is worth it in the long run
There's probably a huge college education bubble forming where eventually people will realize they shouldn't go to college and get a degree in something they don't expect to make money from. There's only so many people who can take on 100k in debt before someone realizes it's not worth it if you can't pay it off
Ya, the problem isn't the university itself IMO but a populace that's overeducated and thus lowering the relative value of having a BA.
but the whole atmosphere of higher education in general. What was the cost of college 20 years ago compared to what it is now? What did the average BA grad make upon graduation and what are they making now? I have a feeling that college grads 20 years ago made as much or more than they do today upon entering the workforce. However, I would imagine that the cost of education has gone WAY up in that same 20 years, despite the average income staying the same (or maybe even decreasing).
I guess my actual point is that higher education is a racket. One must think of college as a literal investment and be completely job/career focused the entire time. I didn't. I went to college because it was the thing to do. I admittedly loved college, but wish I knew then what I know now. My mistake.
Rage is right. At a place like Michigan, the tuition MIGHT be worth the investment depending on the program, but at most universities, it isn't. In fact, the numbers aren't even close. Based on income difference between a high school diploma and an average bachelors degree, undergrad is two steps away from a Ponzi scheme right now. It's a complete joke, and it's only going to get worse.
but I'm curious what people would propose Re: CEOs salaries are out of control. Shouldn't companies be able to spend and/or waste money how they see fit? Should we prevent companies from paying executives over a certain amount? I'm not sure what people are hoping to see here or if everyone is just interested in complaining about CEOs being too rich without a solution (I mean that in nicest way possible)
Is the problem there on the top end, or the bottom end, though? Put another way, is the 400:1 ratio because executive compensation is out of control, or because the average worker's wage has stagnated (or even decreased from inflation) over those years?
From my limited adult-business-world experience, it seems like globalization has slowed or stopped the American blue-collar workers wages while that same globalization may have made companies more profitable and that money is going to the top
/potentiallytalkingoutofmyass
Since you seem to know so much, why don't you enlighten us about these "inner workings"?