Is any college president worth $4.9 million?
If you were to guess who the nation's highest paid college presidents are, I'm sure the president of Mountain State University would never make the list.
Charles H. Polk, who is the president of Mountain State University in Beckley, W. Va., was the sixth best paid private college president in 2009, according to a report released today by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Mountain State devoted 3.5% of its budget to Polk's compensation, which was a higher percentage than any other school in the nation.
If Polk did something amazing to merit this largesse, it wasn't apparent. According to federal government statistics, Mountain State's four-year graduation rate is a mere five percent. The nursing program at the university, which attracts many nontraditional students, lost its bid last month to be nationally accredited. What's more, the entire school is in danger of losing its regional accreditation.
$1 million dollar club
Whether they deserve the money or not, the salaries of college presidents continues to grow. In the latest Chronicle survey, 36 private college presidents earned more than $1 million. The four university presidents who made the most in the survey all retired or, in one case, died, which presumably led to greater packages.
The most stunning compensation went to Constantine N. Papadakis at Drexel University, who died in 2009. His total compensation was $4.9 million. While the president was paid lavishly, the students who attend Drexel must cope with the school's mediocre financial aid practices. I've written about the Drexel's aid policies here: Anatomy of a stingy college and a generous one
10 highest paid private college presidents-- Constantine N. Papadakis, Drexel University, $4,912,127
-- William R. Brody, Johns Hopkins University, $3,821,886
-- Donald V. DeRosa, University of the Pacific, $2,357,540
-- Henry S. Bienen, Northwestern University, $2,240,775
-- Nicholas S. Zeppos, Vanderbilt University, $1,890,274
-- Charles H. Polk, Mountain State University, $1,843,746
-- Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, $1,771,877
-- Alfred H. Bloom, Swarthmore College, $1,756,293
-- Richard C. Levin, Yale University, $1,627,649
-- James L. Doti, Chapman University, $1,542,270
Average college president compensation
The Chronicle calculated that the average total compensation of presidents at private colleges was $385,909 in 2009, while the typical professor's compensation was $118,150.
Students at some campuses, including the University of Pennsylvania, have been protesting the salaries of college presidents at a time when college prices continue to rise far beyond inflation.
Regardless of the rich compensation of some college presidents, none of them came close to earning as much as Charles J. Weis, the University of Notre Dame's football coach, who was fired in 2009. He walked away with a compensation package of $7,284,548.
