Thirty presidents of private colleges each earned more than $1 million in total compensation in 2008, up from 23 the previous year, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual salary report.
Over all, though, 78 percent of presidents of private colleges had total compensation packages of less than $600,000 in 2008, and half earned less than $400,000. A year earlier, 82 percent earned less than $600,000, and 58 percent less than $400,000.
“As usual, there are a few outliers,” said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of The Chronicle, which compiled compensation data from the tax filings of 448 private colleges with expenditures of more than $50 million. “When looking at the very big numbers, there’s always a lot of reasons why those people got such high compensation packages.”
The Chronicle’s top 10 list is a mix of presidents in different, and unusual, circumstances.
The highest-paid college president was Bernard Lander, an Orthodox rabbi and sociologist who founded Touro College in 1970 and over four decades expanded it to dozens of campuses around the world. Mr. Lander, who had a compensation package of $4,786,830, died in February. Another of the top 10, Constantine Papadakis of Drexel University ($1,626,092), died in April 2009.
The second highest paid, earning $2,777,653, was John R. Brazil of Trinity University in Texas, who resigned in January. Steven B. Sample of the , who also retired, earned $1,913,927.
The top 10 included only one president, of , who earned $1,753,984.
The highest-paid sitting president is R. Gerald Turner of , who earned $2,774,000. However, The Chronicle said that according to the university, $1.5 million of that total compensation was a result of Mr. Turner’s cashing out a life insurance policy and buying his own.
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