Higher education in Ohio has some higher salaries

By WILLIAM L. BAINBRIDGE
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
Many news headlines and television features have recently focused on excessive compensation for corporate executives. Public outrage is beginning to spill over into executive salaries for officials at state universities as well.
Parents and students paying escalating tuition are often concerned when administrators who already make large incomes receive increases. They compare this situation to widely publicized examples of corporate excess. For example, Goldman Sachs Group, late this year, announced an average bonus of 622,000 for each of Goldman's 26,500 employees. This figure is not a typo. They are distributing 16.4 billion. As always, top executives will pocket far more than the staff. At Goldman Sachs the CEO's compensation alone is 87 million.
In the corporate sector, there have been numerous cases where executives have laid off thousands of lower-paid workers and then rewarded themselves with various forms of bonuses. Employee retirement plans and health insurance programs are stripped while corporate executive perks soar. Currently, more than 100 publicly traded companies are under investigation by the SEC or the U.S. Department of Justice. Eighteen CEOs have lost their jobs.
The Chronicle of Higher Education's annual survey of executive compensation has once again placed university presidents' salaries in a similar fishbowl.
The compensation of presidents of state universities in Ohio has grown dramatically. According to the Chronicle survey, compensation of presidents at Ohio's major public research universities are:
Ohio State University, Karen A. Holbrook, 600,527
University of Cincinnati, Nancy L. Zimpher, 591,785
Kent State University, Lester A. Lefton, 520,000;
University of Toledo, Lloyd A. Jacobs, 437,129;
University of Akron, Luis M. Proenza, 426,585;
Miami University, David C. Hodge, 399,005;
Wright State University, Kim Goldenberg, 361,939;
Ohio University, Roderick J. McDavis, 333,732;
Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz, 321,325.
Bowling Green State University, Sidney A. Ribeau, 303,252;
Some members of the U.S. Senate are becoming aggressive about overseeing the finances of nonprofit organizations, including colleges. Last year Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a four-page letter to the chair of American University's trustees regarding the severance pay, compensation and spending habits of its ousted president, Benjamin Ladner. "The Finance Committee has been engaged in a bipartisan review of charities and reform of charities, and it appears the AU board could be a poster child for why review and reform are necessary," wrote Grassley.
There is no doubt that major pubic university presidents have earned many more dollars in recent years. Some studies indicate the growth in salaries of presidents significantly exceeds that of the faculty.
Unfair comparisons
Although the levels of university president salaries may be shocking to many, they pale by comparison to pay of corporate titans, even though academic administrators may arguably have more difficult jobs and higher qualifications. University presidents are expected to secure results ranging from recruiting students with increased SAT/ACT scores to ever-increasing performance levels on measures of student academic excellence, such as the Graduate Record Exam. Many highly paid corporate executives "lead" companies with stagnant stocks and profits. When corporate executives fail their "peer committee system" often gives them huge rewards anyway. Such is not the case for most university presidents.
There is also a serious matter of supply and demand. University trustees could find administrators willing to accept positions for less money. But if university CEOs with lower salaries then perform poorly, everyone is disappointed. If they perform well for a few years these presidents often suddenly accept another university's offer at twice the salary and move on. Meanwhile the university is required to conduct another expensive and time consuming search for a new CEO.
Compensation of executives is a sensitive issue for university trustees. Balancing the need for top leadership with the concern for excessive compensation should be high on every university board's agenda.
William L. Bainbridge, Ph.D., is president and chief executive officer of SchoolMatch, a national educational auditing, research, and data organization.