Some College Presidents Feel Guilty, Return Some Money
College and university presidents are well-compensated, and, perhaps, rightly so. Like the CEOs of large corporations, they are responsible, chiefly, for the maintaining and generating of income. So with a down year for endowments, and a budget-constrained future ahead, it’s no surprise that several have opted to forgo raises or to return a portion of their salaries back to the schools they helm.
For some who have gone this route, this outward show of generosity smells like a reactionary PR move more than else. Last Tuesday, the day after The Chronicle of Higher Education published its annual survey of presidential salaries, “Amy Gutmann, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, and her husband made a $100,000 gift to the university to support undergraduate research.”
Do these donations suggest that that college presidents are overcompensated? Maybe – but maybe not. Except for the president of Suffolk University, who earns a whopping $2.8 million dollars a year for manning a school that no one outside Boston has ever heard of, presidential salaries are roughly equivalent to their for-profit counterparts. And they are much lower than the robber barons, i.e. the heads of investment banks, that are largely responsible for crippling our economy.
Dear Amy, et al.: instead of returning your tax-deductible chump change, how about keeping annual tuition raises at, or under, the rate of inflation?
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November 27th, 2008 at 4:47 am
Look, Gutman deserves it. She and her predecessor have transformed Penn from the worst Ivy to possibly the best lower Ivy. Still no match for HYP, but definitely a national challenger.
She deserves every penny, and I’ll bet the alumni think so too.
November 27th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I don’t understand the picture, but I agree with Y’11 that they are now just below HYP. And as students here continue to see them more and more as a peer rival (I think both schools want a stronger rivalry), I predict that in the next 5-10 years, it will be Harvard-Yale and Princeton-Penn as the “big four.”
November 29th, 2008 at 3:32 am
OK, Penn students, you can stop posting under pseudonyms now. The Harvard undergrad experience is possibly the most appalling, save for the University of Chicago. Too bad a name can’t buy you comprehension.
Also, good call on Suffolk. I’d be pissed if I were a student there.
November 29th, 2008 at 3:57 am
Gutman seems pretty chill though.
November 29th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
The president of Suffolk does not make 2.8 million dollars a year, he made that this year because of deferred pay and deferred sabbatical, but his normal salary is much lower.
November 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
theorem: that the green bat cartoons represent known ip addresses of ivy league schools, while every other cartoon is from un-known ip addresses…
November 30th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Theorem tested.
November 30th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I love that pic. As for the money, it’s more than a drop in the bucket for her, but it does highlight how much she makes. I think it opens her up for both fair praise and fair criticism. She has done a lot for the school over the past few years, and she seems really dedicated, but she’s still the punching bag of every comedy group on campus.
November 30th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
harvard’s new website is nice. at least they did something right, finally.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:46 pm
I’ve been interested in taxes for lengthier then I care to admit, both on the personal side (all my working lifetime!!) and from a legal viewpoint since satisfying the bar and following up on tax law. I’ve rendered a lot of advice and righted a lot of wrongs, and I must say that what you’ve put up makes impeccable sense. Please uphold the good work – the more people know the better they’ll be equipped to handle with the tax man, and that’s what it’s all about.