The Chronicle of Higher Education is out with its latest national survey of what private college and university presidents earn, and the results include several eye-popping extremes.
At one end of the spectrum are four multimillion-dollar earners, highest paid among them Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president Shirley Ann Jackson with $7.1 million in total compensation, of which $6.2 million was in deferred compensation, bonus money and other earnings beyond her base pay.
What the leader of the Troy, N.Y., campus earned in 2012 — if not the most ever for a private, nonprofit campus leader — “certainly would be in the conversation,” said Jack Stripling, part of a team that produced the Chronicle’s annual pay survey and related analysis.
At the other end of the spectrum are 28 leaders of church-affiliated institutions who run their campuses for no pay.
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They include, in Western Pennsylvania, such names as Brother Norman Hipps, president of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, and the Rev. Gabriel Zeis, president of St. Francis University in Loretto.
In between the extremes are the overwhelming majority who earned more or less than the survey’s median pay of almost $400,000. The reasons ranged from size, complexity and wealth of their institution to length of tenure, performance and worries that a president will be recruited away for higher pay.
The survey of 537 campus leaders released Sunday evening is for calendar year 2012, the most recent available for national comparison. It is separate from the Chronicle’s look at public campus presidential pay, published each spring, and is likely to rekindle debate about precisely what a college president is worth.
Surveywide, the median pay grew by 2.5 percent from the previous year, the Chronicle found. Thirty-six leaders received more than $1 million.
“Presidential compensation is and rightly should be a huge flashpoint in higher education, particularly at a time when the industry is under such enormous scrutiny, whether because of student debt or skepticism about the value of a college degree in the 21st century,” said Mr. Stripling, a senior reporter with the Chronicle who covers compensation and leadership.
On the one hand, he said, presidential salaries, even the biggest ones, are so small measured against the school’s overall finances that the issue is largely symbolic.
Still, he added, “Try telling that to a student who’s having trouble paying the bill or a parent who is cutting a check [and] hoping it won’t bounce.”
While the no-pay presidency may not be realistic as an across-the-board model, Mr. Stripling said, the presence of those outliers is at least germane to the discussion.
Asked about the Chronicle survey, officials at Rensselaer Polytechnic pointed to growth and accomplishments under Ms. Jackson, the first woman and the first African-American in 190 years to lead the university that is strong in science, technology and arts. Her total compensation was $7,143,312 — almost eight times what Harvard University’s president made that year.
“Time magazine called her ‘perhaps the ultimate role model for women in science,’ and the National Science Board described her as a ‘national treasure,’ and that’s how the university views her,” school trustees chairman Arthur Gajarsa said in a statement this summer marking Ms. Jackson’s 15th year in office.
The Chronicle significantly modified its methodology this year, choosing to count only the portion of deferred compensation received by the campus leaders during the survey period. It said the switch is intended to avoid the potential for double counting, but made comparisons to previous years difficult.
Last year’s Chronicle survey, conducted under the old methodology, found the number of campus leaders earning over $1 million was six higher at 42.
In Pennsylvania, the survey’s top earner in 2012 was University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann with $2,473,952 in total compensation, including $1,123,376 in base pay.
Next was Drexel University president John Fry with total compensation of $1,074,814, including a base salary of $714,120; Widener University president James Harris with $997,140, including base pay of $375,324; and Alice Gast, former Lehigh University president, with $884,907, including $759,160 in base pay.
Fifth highest in Pennsylvania was then-Carnegie Mellon University president Jared Cohon, who stepped down last year. He received $870,672, including $581,883 in base pay.
Other Western Pennsylvania campus leaders ranged in total compensation from Duquesne University president Charles Dougherty at $619,831 to Geneva College president Kenneth Smith at $202,238.
The Chronicle survey includes data from 537 leaders at 497 private colleges, among them chief executives whose tenures began or ended in 2012. Some have since stepped down from their positions.
The numbers were culled from a review of IRS form 990s filed by those institutions as well as U.S. Department of Education filings.
Nationwide, the highest paid after Ms. Jackson was John Lahey of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut with $3,759,076, including $980,000 in base pay; Lee Bollinger of Columbia University, $3,389,917, including $1,012,707 in base pay; Ms. Gutman; and Charles Middleton of Roosevelt University, $1,762,956, including $465,928 in base pay.
First Published: December 7, 2014, 11:00 p.m.
