Dive Summary:
- The latest annual survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education shows that private college presidents' compensation continues to increase, thought the number making over $1 million remained steady at 36.
- Due to a lag in the release of federal tax information, the latest survey covers data from 2010, when the median compensation for the 494 presidents included in the survey was $396,649 (2.8% higher than the previous year's survey) and former Sen. Bob Kerrey, who was president of The New School in New York, was the highest-paid private college president with total compensation of just over $3 million.
- The median base salary at the institutions covered--those with budgets of at least $50 million--fell less than 1%, and The Chronicle reports that half the institutions that employed the 50 highest-paid college presidents in 2010 utilized a practice largely abandoned by publicly traded companies called "grossing up" to make up for presidents' taxes by adding additional cash and benefits to compensation packages.
From the article:
The latest annual compilation by The Chronicle of Higher Education covers data from 2010, due to lag time in the release of federal tax information. That year, median compensation for the 494 presidents in the survey – leaders of institutions with budgets of at least $50 million – was $396,649, or 2.8 percent higher than in last year's survey. But median base salary fell slightly, by less than 1 percent. ...