Some college presidents reach $1 million in pay, compensation

(AP) — Curious where those extra tuition dollars are going? One place to look would be the pockets of college presidents.

Five presidents have cracked the $1 million compensation barrier, according to an annual survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education released Monday, and more are sure to follow. Nine earned more than $900,000—a figure none broke in last year’s report.

All were at private universities, and the figures are for fiscal 2004, the most recent information available for private schools. More recent data on public universities, for the current academic year, shows salaries are rising there, too.

Donald Ross of Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. topped the list at $5.04 million. However, all but $477,000 of that was deferred compensation awarded after 34 years as president.

In past surveys, the only presidents to break $1 million did so in their final years of service, their compensation boosted by some kind of severance or retirement package. This year’s survey, however, features two million-dollar presidents—Ross ($5.04 million) and Gordon Gee of Vanderbilt ($1.33 million) —who are still on the job.

Raymond D. Cotton, a Washington attorney and expert on presidential contracts and compensation, said salary competition is being fueled by a wave of retirements by baby boomer college presidents, and by the growing desire of governing boards to hire only presidents who have already been presidents elsewhere.

Still, most presidents at the nation’s 3,500 colleges and universities earn far less. Other figures from the Chronicle show the average chief executive of a single institution earns a salary of about $181,000.