Dive Brief:
- Kansas State University President Kirk Schulz will not keep the 2% raise the state’s board of regents approved for him last week.
- The Hutchinson News reports that Schulz plans to donate the full amount — $9,339 — to the University Support Staff Awards program.
- While the board of regents approved raises for other campus leaders, the university could not provide a campuswide salary pool for faculty and staff, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
According to The Hutchinson News, Schulz will make $476,290 in the coming school year with his raise. While he is certainly not the highest paid university president in the country, the large disparity between administrative salaries and raises and the pay of faculty and staff has created strain on many campuses. The American Association of University Professors decried the “disease” of administrative bloat in a 1991 issue of Academe and looked back on that focus just last year, arguing that little has changed. Boards of trustees and boards of regents that oversee major higher education institutions insist they have to pay key leaders enough to retain them but the optics are bad. Some leaders, like Schulz, acknowledge that. Gregory Fenves recently turned down a $1 million salary at UT-Austin, opting instead for a more modest $750,000.