More College Presidents Raking in More Dough, Students Still Struggling With …

As total U.S. student loan debt nears a whopping $ 1 trillion, a growing number of university presidents are raking in million-dollar salaries, according to a new study.

In 2009, 36 presidents joined the “Million Dollar Club,” up from 33 members the previous year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The new study comes at an uneasy time, as more college campuses become fertile ground for Occupy Wall Street offshoots. Students decrying tuition hikes, loan debt, bleak opportunities, and campus police abuses typically target university presidents for political reasons–they represent the college’s policies as a whole.

But, as theChronicle reports, students are also taking notice of pay inequities on their campuses.

One such student is University of Pennsylvania senior Meg Hlousek, who wrote an open letter to her million-dollar president in The Daily Pennsylvanian, the campus paper. She writes:

President [Amy] Gutmann, as someone who has paid your tuition fees, who has read your academic literature, who has repeatedly been suggested by your community of preprofessionals to pursue a course in life where my privilege would inevitably rest on the backs of others, including those whom I greet every day when I enter our restricted access library, I am outraged by your financialization — your dystopiazation — of this University, starting with your income statement.

In 2009, Gutmann received a total compensation package of more than $ 1.3 million.

In their annual analysis, the Chronicle tracked 519 private college presidents at institutions with budgets of $ 50 million or more. Taking data from federal tax documents, they found presidents of private, nonprofit institutions made an average of $ 306,000—a 2.2 percent increase from the previous year.

The study also compared president salaries to faculty wages, finding that the average president raked in close to four times as much as professors at their university, but the Chronicle found at least 10 presidents who are making 10 times more.

Another study, by the American Association of University Professors in 2007, documented a trend of widening pay gaps between presidents and professors. When adjusted for inflation, the AAUP found that presidential pay had increased by 35 percent  over a decade—compared to just a 5 percent increase in professor salaries.

The top-paid president for 2009 was Constantine Papadakis of Drexel, who died that April. Accrued earnings and life insurance made up $ 4.9 million of income paid out to his widow.

Unsurprisingly, Ivy League and other colleges with large endowments churned out top-paid presidents, but there were a few presidents who crossed the $ 1 million threshold despite smaller budgets and less national name recognition. One president, Charles H. Polk of Mountain State University was paid $ 1.8 million in 2009, beating out presidents at places like Yale and Swathmore.

In another Chronicle study, pay for public university presidents (who make significantly less than their private college counterparts) have shown signs of leveling off, with base salaries stagnant for one-third of the presidents, and 10 percent seeing an overall decline. Just one public university president made more than $ 1 million—E. Gordon Gee of Ohio State.

Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education told the Chicago Sun Times:

This is not a trend that is helping to build public confidence in higher education.  It helps explain why a majority of Americans think that higher education is more interested in its own bottom line than in the educational experience of students. It’s misplaced priorities.

Naima Ramos-Chapman is an associate editor at Campus Progress.

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