While college students and recent grads continue to struggle with tuition costs and student loans, university presidents are living more comfortably than ever, according to an annual survey done by The Chronicle of Higher Education. In 2013, presidents at the 497 private colleges surveyed earned an average of $436,000—a 5.6 percent increase from the previous year. Thirty-two presidents make over $1 million a year.
Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University and the highest earning university executive in the country, made a total of $4,615,230 in 2013, accounting for both base and bonus pay. That’s over $1 million more than he made in the previous year. The second highest earning president, Amy Gutmann of the University of Pennsylvania, made a total of $3,065,746—almost $1.5 million of which came from bonuses.
Most of the top earners come from big-name schools, such as Vanderbilt, Tulane, Johns Hopkins, New York University and the University of Southern California. But rounding out the top ten are some smaller schools as well: High Point University, Yeshiva University and Rockefeller University.
A separate survey done by The Chronicle also found that presidents’ salaries at public universities, while more modest than their counterparts at private colleges, are on the rise as well. Two public university presidents made over $1 million—Rodney A. Erickson of Pennsylvania State, who made $1,494,603 in 2013, and R. Bowen Loftin of Texas A&M, who made $1,128,957.
Why do university heads rake in so much dough?
“From talking to boards of trustees, often what we hear is that they’ll pay whatever they have to to retain the talent at their institutions,” Sandhya Kambhampati of The Chronicle told The New York Times. “There’s a finite number of people available for these positions.”
Some universities have spoken out in defense of their presidents’ high salaries. “Under [President Bollinger’s] leadership, we see Columbia is performing at a level and achieving a standing it has not enjoyed in many years, solidifying its place at the top rank of the world’s great universities,” said Columbia’s Board of Trustees chair Jonathan D. Schiller in a statement, according to The New York Times.
David L. Cohen, the Board of Trustees chair at University of Pennsylvania, expressed similar sentiments about President Gutmann. “We believe she is the best university president in the country, and being No. 2 in The Chronicle rankings is consistent with that positioning,” he told The Chronicle. “If you’re going to recruit and retain the type of talent that you need to run a university of this complexity and to continue to advance this university’s reputation… you have to fairly compensate individuals for doing that job.”
But is making multi-millionaires of university presidents really fair compensation? Maybe not, when you think about the students and their families who are scrambling to get loans and scholarships to make their next tuition bill—which, at many private schools, totals more than $60,000 a year.