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.”