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Presents data from institutional tax forms for the pay and benefits of key personnel at 475 private colleges and universities for 1996-97 and 1997-98. Institutions are grouped by Carnegie Classification and listings typically include data for six positions, such as the president, highest paid faculty member, a senior vice president, and chief financial officer. (DB)

Data are presented for the 1994-95 and 1995-96 salary and 1995-96 fringe benefits of the chief executive and five highest-paid individuals (faculty or administrators) at 477 private colleges and universities. Data are drawn from institutional tax forms. For each institution, total 1995-96 institutional expenditures are also listed. The list of colleges is not comprehensive. (MSE)

An annual survey shows that male professors still earn more than female professors for the same work. (EV)

A new salary survey highlights concerns about the growing pay gap between professional-school faculty members and everyone else. Offers a table of average faculty salaries by field at 4-year institutions. (EV)

Discusses a study by the American Association of University Professors that found that faculty salaries this year have risen at the highest rate in 11 years (3.8 percent) but predicts that the recession will lead to a decline. Includes several data tables, including a listing of faculty salaries at more than 1,400 institutions. (EV)

Describes the salaries paid to many presidents of private colleges. At least 74 presidents were paid more than $300,000 in salary and benefits in 1998-1999, and 21 chief executives earned $400,000 or more. The figures are derived from a federal tax return that requires nonprofit institutions to disclose, with other financial information, how they compensate their top officials. (SLD)

Analyzes institutional tax forms for 1997-98 earnings of presidents of 475 private colleges, finding that 13 percent earned more than $300,000, eight individuals earned more than $500,000; mean pay rose by 4 percent to $175,389. Reports that institutions claim high salaries are needed to compete with the private sector. Lists the 20 highest earning presidents. (DB)

Data on 1995-96 private college faculty and administrator compensation, based on tax returns of 477 colleges, reveals half the presidents received raises outpacing inflation. Fifty received no raise. Overall, the highest paid were medical faculty, although 47 coaches and athletic directors were among the highest paid at their institutions. Compensation includes salary, bonuses, severance payments; benefits are not included. (MSE)

Data from an annual survey (n=1,432 institutions) on college administrator salaries show that, although salaries increased modestly, they kept up with inflation. They also indicate patterns in internal vs. external promotion and in presidents' lengths of service. Data are displayed by position and institution type (doctoral, comprehensive, baccalaureate, two-year). (MSE)

With tax revenues beginning to rebound in most states and endowments on the rebound at many private and public institutions, colleges and universities are growing more hopeful about their financial outlook and instituting new strategies to take advantage of the opportunities. Yet as the economic recovery has slowed in the past few months, questions remain about the lingering effects of the recession and whether colleges need to be held to a more stringent level of accountability. On the whole, college finances have recovered slightly after several years of budget cuts, layoffs, and furloughs. As money flows toward colleges once again, so do demands that they prove they are providing value, and well-trained graduates. In this uncertain climate, legislators and accreditors are focusing more and more on completion rates as a quantitative measure of an institution's success. College retention and graduation have been central to President Obama's education policy, and states are increasingly focusing on these two issues by directly linking state appropriations to completion rates. Despite the challenges, the recent success of fund-raising programs and the slow but steady growth in the economy has allowed states and universities to develop new, innovative ways to manage their money and better serve their students. Colleges and universities are also trying to develop better measures to judge how they distribute aid.

In a long-simmering national fight over compensation for public-college presidents, the State of California emerged this year as the primary battleground. More than any other institution in recent memory, California State University has publicly and sometimes bitterly wrestled with a vexing question for higher education: How much does a public university really need to pay its chief executive in order to recruit the best and brightest without squandering scarce resources? The question is one that eludes simple answers, but Cal State's new policy of clearly stated salary caps for incoming leaders will test whether a governing board can rein in presidential pay without deleterious consequences. Public outcry over presidential pay, which has become a potent political target in these lean economic times, appears to have done little to affect what presidents earn at public research institutions. When college trustees defend escalating presidential pay, they often cite the need to be competitive in national searches in which top candidates are courted by multiple institutions across many states.

Salaries for midlevel administrators rose by a median of 2 percent this year over last year, matching the median pay increase for senior administrators and coming in slightly higher than the 1.9-percent median increase for faculty members, says an annual report released by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. Midlevel administrators--who include auditors, curators, police officers, coaches, and other staff--received a bigger pay increase from the 2011 to the 2012 fiscal years than they did in the previous year, when the median salary increase was 1.3 percent. Still, pay increases for midlevel administrators lagged behind inflation, which rose 3.2 percent from 2010 to 2011. As with other types of positions, private colleges gave midlevel administrators better raises on average than public ones did, according to the report, which reflects data for 489 public and 595 private institutions. For those employees, private institutions provided salary increases of 2.2 percent, compared with 1.4 percent at public colleges.

A table showing average faculty salaries by rank at colleges, universities, and multi-campus college systems in 1986-87 is presented. Average faculty salaries for institutions without academic ranks, most are two-year colleges, appear in a separate table. (MLW)

Describes development and expansion of Life University (Georgia) to an institution with 3,500 students offering the doctor of chiropractic degree, a master's degree in sport health science, and bachelor's degrees in 32 related areas. Notes the president's dominant role and critics' objections to high salaries for the president and his family members. Reports a new emphasis on obtaining research grants. (DB)

Chapman College has returned from near financial collapse by renovating the campus, repaying a $4-million debt, raising its endowment from $700,000 to $25 million, recruiting new faculty, linking salaries to performance, initiating other personnel changes, and developing new programs and facilities. (MSE)

The guide outlines what Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 means for equity in college athletic programs, citing the 1975 regulation and the 1979 athletics policy interpretation for a number of program aspects. Relevant litigation is also cited. (MSE)

Even though the author and his colleagues are part of a major research university, they agonize, in meeting after meeting, over the 5 to 10-percent yearly cuts they need to make in their chemistry department's budget. By and large, those end up coming from education, not research, especially in faculty replacements and teaching assistants. The same decisions are being made at most other universities. The research budget they can't touch, for it is federal money that flows through their university but is not under their control. No rules dictate, however, how many teaching positions they can cut. The consequences are that the education of undergraduates will suffer--by their own standards, in the experience of their students, and in the perception of their bill-paying parents. Something's got to give, and the author thinks that change should be in the organization of graduate education and research. The faculty gives the young people who work with them a work ethic, approaches to wisdom, sound professional training, and the joy of taking part in exploring the universe. But the current system exploits them--to work off their addiction to research, they must write proposal after proposal to find the means of supporting their students. The author would propose that government granting agencies eliminate research-assistant salaries from research budgets. Instead, those funds, which are substantial, should be used for a system of competitive fellowships, to be carried by the graduate students to the schools of their choice. Those fellowships should, of course, have a tuition component as well as a living allowance. Universities should charge science graduate students tuition and not pay them stipends, except for teaching services. If government can resist industry lobbying to expand immigration, the changes could lead in the long run to an increase in pay for American science Ph.D.'s. That economic incentive would be a powerful draw to the profession.

Faculty pay has been battered by the deepening national recession, but one cannot tell that from the American Association of University Professors' new annual report on the economic status of the profession. The average salary of a full-time faculty member rose 3.4% in 2008-2009, it says, a rate well above inflation. That would be good news, but the association collected the salary information in the fall of 2008, before layoffs, pay cuts, and furloughs began to crimp faculty members' incomes. To put the association's salary calculations into perspective, much of the document paints a picture of higher education under attack, and it highlights various budget-cutting measures under way on campuses. With the economy as a backdrop, the report also spotlights the plight of faculty members who work off the tenure track, in particular instructors who work part time. The proportion of part-time and full-time adjunct faculty members--a figure that the association closely tracks--grew from 43.2% of the professoriate in 1975 to 68.8% in 2007. The proportion of adjunct faculty members who are part-timers rose from 30.2% to 50.3% during that same time period. Adjunct faculty members still lack job security, and frequently the first to lose their jobs at colleges focused on immediately cutting expenses. Possible outcomes of this situation is that some adjuncts could drop out of the academic work force, and/or part-timers will have even less leverage for demanding better pay and working conditions. The report also continues its attention to gender equity, showing that at every type of institution, male academics continue to earn more, on average, than women who hold the same jobs. Because the economy could get worse before it gets better, the AAUP urges faculty members to be diligent about getting involved in budget discussions at their institutions, while warning that some administrations may respond to difficult financial times by pushing ahead on major reorganizations without involving faculty members of thinking about long-term consequences

Adjuncting is the way of the future. In 20 years, there won't exist more than a handful of tenured professors. Universities want cheap, cheap labor, as much of it as they can get. While many lament that state of affairs, the author embraces it and invites other graduate students and newly minted untouchables to do the same. The writer shares how he makes $100,000 working as an adjunct English instructor. He also offers tips on how adjuncts can feel good about their jobs.

Congress and other watchdogs have grilled colleges in recent years for what some regard as the excessive pay of their chief executives. This article reports that a "Chronicle" analysis has found that presidents and chancellors are a minority of the highest-compensated college employees. Chief executives accounted for only 11 out of 88 private-college employees who made $1-million or more in the 2006-2007 fiscal year. And only 90 presidents and chancellors numbered among the 293 who earned $500,000 or more. Many of the others drawing the biggest paychecks were medical-school administrators or professors with highly specialized skills. Those findings come from an exclusive new list, assembled by "The Chronicle," of the compensation of more than 4,000 employees other than chief executives at 600 private four-year colleges. The data were drawn from the financial reports that colleges and other nonprofit institutions are required to file annually with the Internal Revenue Service.

When people talk about the future of public universities, they are usually talking about the flagship state universities. Flagship state universities have greatly increased expenditures in the past decade. The goal of the flagship institutions has been to compete with the best private universities, based on the assumptions that state funds will be plentiful, and that students and their families will be able come up with the money. But both state support and tuition are becoming less secure as states face deficits and families find the cost of college increasingly difficult to meet. Overall, the price of tuition and fees has gone up 439 percent in the last 25 years, while median household income has risen 147 percent, with those gains being unevenly distributed). Student borrowing has more than doubled in 10 years. All of those developments occurred before the current economic crisis. The author discusses actions that public flagship institutions might take to alleviate their financial distress, including: (1) finding more money; (2) reconceiving the mission; (3) keeping the mission, but shrinking the institutions; (4) sharing pain by cutting pay for everyone or freezing hiring, increasing teaching load and saving money through attrition; and (5) changing nothing.

Most colleges have steered through the first jolts of the recession without resorting to layoffs, cutting employee benefits, or imposing across-the-board freezes on hiring. But the economic pain is afflicting campuses in many other ways, according to the findings from a new survey of chief business officers conducted last month by "The Chronicle" and Moody's Investors Service. Survey responses from more than 200 public and private four-year colleges show that slightly more than one in 10 colleges had laid off employees, and another 26 percent were considering doing so. The results suggest that colleges are taking pains to avoid reducing the benefits of current employees--only about 6 percent said they had reduced benefits, and 18 percent of the remaining ones were considering such a step. But more than one-third of all respondents said they had already frozen salaries or delayed increases, and more than half of the rest said they expected to.

This article describes the successful "reverse brain drain" scheme offered by the Chinese government for their scholars who study abroad. The program is a significant about-face from early Chinese policy on overseas study. Government programs and individual academic departments now offer competitive benefits and salaries to candidates interested in returning from abroad. Combined with China's rapid economic growth, the programs are attracting an increasing number of sea turtles, as these scholars are known. Returnees tend to assume positions of leadership, with the power to introduce new teaching methods, direct research, or oversee curricular reform. This flow of returnees back into China has become so noticeable that it has prompted a backlash of cultural conflict, resentment from locals, and infighting. And as more people return, hiring policies are tightening. As Chinese universities become more competitive, turning out better graduates, the emphasis on foreign experience may decrease as returnees compete in the hiring pool with locally trained scholars.

While some presidents are almost as overpaid as their basketball coaches, most campus administrators are not. Instead they work hard at complex and demanding positions and are often paid less than managers with comparable responsibilities in other lines of work. Assessments of compensation typically invoke criteria of fairness and performance. Fairness is a relational concept. Presidents make claims of fairness about their compensation by pointing to what other presidents are paid at highly ranked competitor institutions. They complain about the high cost of living in the region, or they note that education administrators have historically been less well paid than similarly talented executives in other fields. Those arguments succeed to the point that they tap into widely accepted values. The arguments break down, however, when presidents resist applying those same values to everyone else on the campus. Using one form or another of peer comparison, many administrators can easily show that they should earn 20 or 30 percent more than their current salary. But that relatively modest underpayment pales beside the perennial exploitation of adjunct faculty members. In this article, the author contends that the issue is less whether most college presidents are overpaid than whether faculty and staff members are underpaid.

What do college presidents do, anyway? There was a time when American college presidents were looked to for intellectual, and even political, leadership. One of the most famous examples is Woodrow Wilson, who, as the head of Princeton University, was recruited to become governor of New Jersey in 1910 and, just two years later, was the successful Democratic candidate for president of the United States. The author, himself president of a liberal-arts college, writes that the job of a college president has evolved considerably over the last half-century, and encompasses a wide range of duties, including financial management, personal counseling to many and diverse constituents, dispensing of patronage, dispute settlement, and social connection.

Female faculty members and graduate students at Rutgers University in New Brunswick's political-science department feel unfairly compensated and shut out of leadership positions by their male counterparts, says an internal university report obtained by "The Chronicle." In at least one case, a woman has been afraid to complain about sexual harassment because of worries about retaliation. Reviewing a variety of salary data, the committee uncovered "evidence of subtle and not-so-subtle bias against women in the department," leading committee members to recommend that the university "take decisive action to remedy the departmental culture," the report says. Douglas Greenberg, the university's new dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, told "The Chronicle" that the report has been at the top of his agenda since his first day on the job in August. No steps have been taken yet to deal with the report's findings. Mr. Greenberg said he wanted to fully understand the "very serious charges" in the report before he acts.

Connie Kravas, the vice president for university advancement at the University of Washington, has brought in 64 new fund raisers since 2002--close to doubling its staff--to help raise money for a $2-billion-plus campaign. Many college development offices have experienced similar rapid growth in recent years, with many adding fund raisers at a faster rate than ever. Fueling the growth are several converging trends. Government support is down, competition for dollars is up, and institutions without strong fund-raising operations are at risk of being left behind. This article describes the current trend of hiring fund raisers in the academe.

It's not just the climbing walls and the salaries for star professors driving up the cost of college. In some cases, costs go up because the culture and management of traditional institutions are simply not structured to promote efficiency and savings. At for-profit colleges, it's a different story. There, the "incentives to save money are centralized." As a result, several for-profit colleges employ strategies rarely used by traditional institutions--such as paying instructors by the student rather than the class--that help them make money. In this era of tight budgets and growing national scrutiny of rising college costs, might some of the same bottom-line practices work as cost-cutting approaches for nonprofit colleges? This article looks at three strategies that help for-profit colleges succeed financially and in some cases pedagogically--strategies that might reduce costs in traditional higher education.

Twenty years ago, Vietnam's closed-door policy meant its students were restricted to the former Soviet-bloc countries. Today they study all over the world--about 6,000 are in the United States alone. In many cases, their tuition and living expenses are paid by foreign governments and private charitable organizations. Fulbright, the Ford Foundation, and others are all trying to raise the level of scholarship in Vietnam. Yet upon their return, many academics are asking what they are coming back to. Those who come home after their studies--and nearly all do--are frustrated that what they learned is either of little interest to their departments or considered possibly dangerous by their universities. Suspicious administrators have even used closed-circuit television to monitor the lectures of newly returned professors. Academics also say they simply can't live on what the average professor earns--about $100 per month--and have to take second and third jobs. Many complain that their skills are being wasted. One master's degree holder was assigned by her university to operate the copy machine and make tea. Though all the returning academics interviewed for this article said they had come back to teach, which holds great honor in Vietnamese society, all had left the university or said they would leave if they could.

Many college presidents get a load of freebies--big house, nice car, fancy meals, country-club membership. The perks help them perform official duties, like holding college functions at home and courting donors on the golf course. Since many of their living expenses are taken care of, they have cash to spare. The median compensation, including salary and benefits, for presidents at 182 public research universities was $397,349 in 2006-2007, according to "The Chronicle's" latest annual survey of executive compensation. For presidents of private research universities, the figure was $528,105 for 2005-2006. Some presidents splurge on vacation homes, some on travel. Others pay for their kids' private schools. Some give money back to the institutions they lead, saying that is their biggest expense. Not all presidents, of course, make such big salaries. The median compensation package of presidents at the largest community colleges is about $250,000. But with recent instances of some presidents' abusing expense accounts, officials at all types of institutions are extra careful these days about using the college credit card too freely. They want to avoid the fate of Benjamin Ladner, former president of American University, who was pushed out two years ago after revelations of his lavish spending. Indeed, many presidents err on the side of caution. They scrupulously record every dime and even pull out their own wallets for college-related meals. In this article, five college presidents reveal how they spend their money, and how they keep their business spending kosher.

The University of Kentucky has an evaluation system to determine the president's bonus that would make many chief executives uncomfortable: Everyone on campus can participate--the faculty, the staff, even the students. Lee T. Todd Jr., president of the University of Kentucky, and James F. Hardymon, former chairman of the university's board, developed the system that is meant to avoid the appearance that it is a foregone conclusion that the president will receive a bonus every year. Kentucky's structure, says those who shaped it, allows for accountability while trying to solve the old problem of remaining competitive in the national market to attract the best executives. About 60 of the 182 public-research universities that "The Chronicle" surveyed gave their presidents bonuses this year, mostly for performance and retention. But the way the amounts are determined is unclear at many institutions. The IRS is thinking of revising the 990 form to require institutions to provide a breakdown of their executive's salary, including any bonus. Public universities are more open about bonuses, but the way they are determined can still be hard to understand. The University of Kentucky created the bonus review to get around state law, which stipulates that no state-university presidents can have a higher base salary than that of the chairman of the Council of Postsecondary Education. (Contains 2 tables.)

Stephen J. Trachtenberg planned to stick around for only a decade as president of George Washington University. But when he retired recently, he had stayed at the helm for 19 years. Now Mr. Trachtenberg, 69, is chairman of the education practice at the executive-search firm Korn/Ferry International. This article presents Mr. Trachtenberg's interview with "The Chronicle," wherein he talked about presidential pay, the path to the top job, and the benefits--other than an extra paycheck--of corporate-board service. (Contains 2 tables.)

At the top echelon of higher education, boards have to pay to play when hiring a president. "The Chronicle"'s latest survey of executive compensation shows what might be described as the minimum pay now required at the top institutions. At public research universities, the minimum compensation among the big players is roughly $450,000. In the 2006-7 fiscal year, 56 of the 182 public institutions in the survey paid their president at least that amount. Among private institutions, the median compensation of leaders of research institutions rose 37 percent in the last five years of the survey, to $528,105. That is faster than the rate of increase over the same period for presidents of master's (30 percent) or baccalaureate (28 percent) institutions. The competition for presidents at the highest levels is becoming more intense, and pay is going up accordingly. This year, for the first time, "The Chronicle" survey includes a broad look at the salaries of presidents of the largest community colleges. The median salary of the community-college leaders was about $250,000, about the same as a master's-level private college, even though some community colleges have far more students than many research institutions. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

As community colleges have matured, many presidents' jobs--especially at the largest colleges in the country--have grown to become those of college president, entrepreneur, lobbyist, global ambassador, county leader, and fund raiser rolled into one. Their compensation has grown as well. At the largest two-year colleges and college systems in the country, median total compensation now tops $250,000, according to "The Chronicle"'s first comprehensive look at presidential pay at those institutions. A handful of seasoned presidents make more than $350,000 a year. "The Chronicle"'s survey also found that presidential compensation at community colleges isn't just about salary and retirement anymore. Like universities, many two-year colleges have begun offering their presidents housing and car allowances, deferred compensation, and an array of bonuses. Still, community-college presidents' compensation has not reached the level of that at four-year institutions. The presidents at the 68 largest two-year colleges, districts, and systems make much less than their counterparts at the 182 largest public four-year institutions in the country, according to "The Chronicle"'s survey. At those universities and four-year systems, median compensation is now almost $400,000 a year, $150,000 higher than at community colleges. Their pay also pales in comparison to the chief executives at private institutions-- despite the fact that most of the two-year colleges are many times larger than the private four-year institutions. (Contains 2 tables.)

Chief financial officers at the nation's private colleges have bigger workloads than ever before, and in return, many are taking home much larger paychecks. A "Chronicle" survey of 103 private doctoral institutions shows that between 2003 and 2005, the median compensation package for the top financial position, which includes such titles as vice president for business and finance and vice president for business and administration, rose 13.8 percent. That raise was more than twice the increase in median pay and benefits for provosts. Compensation packages for chief financial officers also outpaced the 7.9-percent increase in pay and benefits for presidents at such colleges. As financial officers in higher education command more for their services, not only at the colleges that were part of the survey but also at other institutions, industry observers are closely watching one key factor that has the potential to push salaries even higher: an increasing willingness to hire from outside academe. A recent sampling of job advertisements for chief financial officers at various colleges called for candidates able to manage operating budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and oversee areas that included human resources, information technology, facilities, risk management, and auxiliary services. Colleges also want candidates with the skills needed to develop long-term financial plans and lead the way in securing financing for a wide range of construction and renovation projects. With all that is at stake, colleges both small and large are more often looking for candidates from corporate America, government, or other nonprofit organizations. A chief financial officer of a public company may have expertise in areas increasingly valuable to the higher-education sector, such as capital markets or real-estate. Adapting to nonprofit accounting methods is not difficult, but chief financial officers accustomed to making quick decisions and focusing on the bottom line sometimes find it difficult to navigate higher-education's culture of shared governance. And, while business officers with ties to corporate America may get paid more than their peers whose roots are in higher-education finance, they are unlikely to make as much as they did in business. However, higher education does offer some benefits of its own. Unlike public and private companies, colleges rarely close, merge, or relocate, and, for those attuned to the mission, they may offer a quality of life not found in private industry.

Over the past decade, an increasing number of public institutions have raised the pay and benefits of presidents with contributions from private sources, including foundations. This article presents the findings of a survey conducted by "The Chronicle" that reflected this trend. The median compensation for public-university presidents included in the survey, taking into account the four additions as well as corrections and changes submitted by colleges, was $371,548.

The median salary of college administrators increased by 4 percent in the 2006-7 academic year, according to an annual survey released this week by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The increase in pay for positions that include presidents, chief academic officers, deans, and various vice presidents and directors was greater than the prior academic year, when the median salary was up 3.5 percent. Also, for the 10th consecutive year, the median salary increase for administrators outpaced inflation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index for urban consumers in 2006 was 3.2 percent higher than in 2005.

Last week, commissioners of the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics organized a meeting to tackle recruiting problems and gender inequalities in college sports, but another topic--the high pay of football and men's basketball coaches--came up repeatedly. This article reports on what the commission intends to do in order to fight high salaries of college coaches, gender inequalities and recruitment irregularities in college sports. This article also provides ideas on how to improve the process of recruiting athletes.

The skyrocketing pay and benefits of corporate executives have kept reporters and, sometimes, prosecutors busy in recent years. The resulting public outrage over these tales of excess has contributed to a backlash. Now the news media, in searching for excessive pay in places where there seems to be no cap on costs, have increasingly focused their investigative lenses on the leaders of colleges and universities. The spending in question has ranged from $457.43 spent by the president of the Community College of Allegheny County on a rental car to $334-million in questionable pay and perquisites for high-level employees at the University of California system. This article reports on presidential salaries and spending compensation which are making headlines.

Presents data on number of volumes, volumes added in 1995-96, current serials, permanent staff, and total expenditures of university and non-university research libraries in the United States and Canada. Also charts operating expenditure percentages for salaries, books and monographs, serials, and other materials and expenses. (MSE)