Amid ongoing concern among students and administrators over
rising student fees and budget shortfalls, the University of
California has assumed an increasingly market-based approach to
determining pay for top executives.
The UC Board of Regents voted last week to increase the salaries
of the university’s top officials by 2.5 percent ““
ostensibly to remain competitive with comparable institutions
““ but it still left UC leaders’ salaries trailing far
behind those of many of their public university counterparts.
“We’ve been seeing the salaries throughout the
university lagging behind,” said UC Spokesman Noel Van
Nyhuis. “The increases that were approved by the regents last
week were to help mitigate some of the market lags.”
A survey released this month by the Chronicle of Higher
Education listing the pay for public university executives put UC
President Robert Dynes as the 43rd highest-paid public university
president or chancellor, earning $423,666 last year from both the
state and private sources, which include deferred compensation and
bonuses. UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale ranked 75th, earning
$340,296.
Topping the list was University of Michigan President Mary Sue
Coleman, who was paid $724,604 last year, including both public and
private sources.
Julie Peterson, a spokeswoman for the University of Michigan,
said after the previous president left for Columbia University in
2001, the university’s regents decided to increase the salary
of the next president in order to remain competitive.
Based on “the size and complexity” of
Coleman’s responsibilities as president, which includes her
extensive fundraising duties, Peterson said the pay was
appropriate. Coleman refused a raise after her first year due to
the university’s budget constraints, Peterson said, and in
subsequent years has had a 2 percent and, most recently, a 3.5
percent raise.
But some experts believe the increasing administrative salaries
reflect a recent trend in which universities are orienting
themselves toward the private sector at the expense of the public
good.
John Curtis, director of research for the American Association
of University Professors, called the market-driven increase in pay
“an artificial inflation,” and said public universities
should be more focused on the public interest than on bloating the
already six-figure salaries of their top administrators.
“It seems to indicate more of a bottom-line approach to
running the university,” he said.
“It’s not so much that there should be a specific
limit on what they should earn, but that they’re making the
wrong comparison,” Curtis said. Rather than comparing
presidents’ salaries to private sector CEOs, he said, the
universities should compare the salaries to those of faculty
members to avoid the disproportionate increase in presidential
salaries that has occurred among many colleges and universities
over the past 20 years.
But the realities of the market have pushed executive salaries
upward, and Van Nyhuis said it is necessary to compete in order to
maintain a high quality of education at the UC.
“A lot of these other schools come looking at the UC to
try to lure our faculty and administration officials away from
us,” Van Nyhuis said.
“We have to be willing to put resources toward having the
best and the brightest at our universities,” he said.
Additionally, though public universities are more scrutinized
for administrator pay, Van Nyhuis said the UC also has to compete
with private universities when looking to hire top executives.
According to a Chronicle of Higher Education study of private
university president compensation, five private university
presidents earned over $1 million in the last reported year, and
the top earner ““ Donald Ross of Lynn University in Florida
““ earned over $5 million.
The average compensation for the presidents of the eight Ivy
League schools was $639,778.