College presidents make lots of money

If you want to be rich, become the president of a private college. The median compensation is $627,750.

You don’t even have to be the president of an elite school. Two of the highest paid presidents (both pulling in more than $1.4 million) work at Suffolk University and the University of Tulsa.

No wonder why the cost of college education is so high. The students’ tuition has to pay for the college president’s salary.

Comments

[tdaxp]

It's my understanding that the President of a university acts mainly as a fundraiser. Therefore, (at least according to what I have heard), the "salary" is actually a form of commission.

Actual policy tends to be made by either a Board of Regents or the responsible Vice Presidents / Chancellors.

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

At most major universities the football and basketball coaches vastly outearn the presidents.

Peter

[bigboy]

And the dean, and the associate dean, and the ever expanding cabal of diversity deans, green deans, etc...

[WRB]

Also, a university president will get that salary for more years than your average CEO

[sabril]

I know from personal experience that higher education can be phenomenally lucrative.

Imagine if you ran a luxury car dealership and the government set up guaranteed loan programs so that people could just sign on the dotted line and buy a new luxury car. You would make a killing.

[Monkey]

Sabril is right. The reason the cost of a college education is so high is that colleges via financial aid paperwork practice open price discrimination.

Steve Sailer pointed this out here:

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2007/01/college-financial-aid-applications-as.html

"Our Endangered Right to Privacy is a favorite topic of newspaper editorials and long op-eds. Yet, I don't recall ever seeing anyone point out that the extraordinarily elaborate process of applying for "financial aid" from colleges tramples all over your privacy. This says a lot about the deference paid to the college cartel by the American upper middle class.

As you know, colleges set their sticker prices by picking some absurdly high figure, like $46,732 per year, then discount like crazy, although they call their discounts "financial aid." But, they discount the way economic theory predicts a monopolist would - by perfect price discrimination, setting the profit-maximizing price for each potential customer. You learn in Econ 101 that in the real world, this theoretical result is seldom achieved because firms can't obtain all detail necessary about each customer for setting the perfect price. If your econ professor has s a rogue wit, he will then point out that there is a single exception: American colleges, which insist upon complete financial disclosure from applicants for "financial aid.""

[BrunoBrazil]

The race for the university that can get away with charging US$ 1 million for a bachelors in philosophy has begun.

Or would you like a US$ 2 million J.D? What about a US$ 3 million PhD?

Shit, where is this world going?

[restoration]

The University IS an elite institution.