Clearly Worth the Money
What does private school tuition and massive fundraising campaigns go towards? Why, feathering the nests of top administrators of course!
Forty-two presidents of private colleges were paid more than a million dollars in 2011, up from 36 for the previous two years, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual analysis of the colleges’ latest available tax forms.
The three top earners were Robert J. Zimmer, University of Chicago ($3,358,723); Joseph E. Aoun, Northeastern University ($3,121,864); and Dennis J. Murray, Marist College ($2,688,148).
According to the Chronicle, Dr. Zimmer’s pay doubled in 2011, Dr. Aoun’s nearly tripled in the same time, and Dr. Murray’s almost quadrupled from the previous year. Although their base salaries all remained under $1 million, the top three, like many other highly paid presidents, earned much more from retirement packages, bonuses or deferred compensation.
I happen to be very near Marist College as I write and this is front page news here. While Marist is a reasonably decent institution of higher education, how on earth does the guy deserve $2.68 million? He doesn’t of course, even if the bulk of it comes from some sort of retirement package. This is a major problem in the spiraling costs of higher education. Yet the focus goes on supposedly worthless liberal arts degrees, as if our low salaries and zero research support is even a drop in the bucket of the larger problems.