The salaries of university and college presidents have skyrocketed in recent years, according to a study done by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
According to the 2001 study, at least 27 university presidents earned more than $500,000 — more than double the number who made that salary the year before.
Last year, UNM President William Gordon received a 6.5 percent increase, making his annual salary $218,802, a $13,000 increase over the year before.
Upon his departure, Gordon’s salary was 15 percent more than his predecessor’s, Richard Peck, which topped out at $189,900.
Chris Garcia, who also makes $218,802, declined a higher salary, saying that because the faculty and staff were not slated to receive pay raises, it was not fair that he should either.
The growing trend of upping president’s salaries is not limited to UNM. Private colleges have far out-paced their public university counterparts in raising their leaders’ salaries. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Judith Rodin, president of the University of Pennsylvania, leads the nation with an annual compensation package of $808,021. The package includes her salary, bonuses and benefits.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
UNM President Chris Garcia’s salary “is low for the size and complexity of the institution,” said William Funk, managing director of college presidential searches at Korn/ Ferry International, an executive search firm that managed the last two UNM presidential searches in 1990 and 1998.
“For an institution the size of UNM, I would tell you that the figure should be between $300,000 and $350,000,” Funk said.
However, UNM is in the best position in decades to attract top candidates because of its stable leadership over the past 11 years, he said.
The dramatic increase in compensation for university leaders is a fairly new phenomenon — within the past 12 to 18 months, salaries at a few universities have doubled or even tripled, said Jerry Baker of Baker-Parker, Inc., in an Ohio State University newspaper. Baker-Parker, Inc. is a presidential search firm based in Georgia.
Baker added that competition between and among institutions of similar scope has pushed salaries upward. The median salary for college presidents and vice presidents rose 5.3 percent in 2001-02, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which surveys college salaries annually. The median salary for presidents of universities that grant doctoral degrees was $243,360 this year, putting UNM well below average.
UNM will probably have to offer more than that to whomever is chosen to succeed Garcia because it is a “very complex” University with a hospital and a medical school, said former UNM Reg. David Archuleta in an Albuquerque Journal article.
Archuleta said the board must be prepared to offer a salary sufficient enough to attract a quality president. He wouldn’t say, however, just how much the Board of Regents would be willing to pay.
“If we want them bad enough, I suppose, it’s whatever the market will bear,” he said.
Garcia said that UNM must pay the national “market” rate if it is to be competitive in the competitive marketplace for university presidents.
“Typically at UNM, when a person is usually hired from the outside is the time the largest salary adjustment is made,” Garcia said.
Garcia added that CEOs of many large institutions are receiving relatively large salaries, and this is also true of universities.
But the national market for college presidents is tighter now than a decade ago, and top candidates demand higher salaries, Funk said.
At any given time, 30 to 40 colleges are seeking presidents and the pool of top candidates is typically thin, he said.
These jobs have become so demanding and the expectations are so high, that these people expect to be paid a lot, Funk said.
“Many factors attract a candidate … a competitive salary is one of them,” Garcia said. “The presidency of a large, research university is a complex and demanding job . . . it incorporates a 24/7/365 lifestyle and huge responsibilities,” Garcia said.
