Just the facts: Highest paid college presidents

Columbia University

Despite whatever pressure may exist on campuses to keep costs down, the compensation of college presidents continues to rise. For private college presidents, compensation rose 5.6 percent between 2012 and 2013, to a median of $436,000, according to an annual survey conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education.  

A similar survey of public universities revealed that salaries at those institutions were up by seven percent. Specifically, the median salary for those in office for the full year was $428,250.

In all, 32 private and 2 public university presidents received at least $1 million in compensation during the year. This represented a slight decline from the previous year, when the total was 36. But note that five college presidents earned more than $2 million in salary and benefits:   Lee Bollinger at Columbia University, Amy Gutmann at the University of Pennsylvania, Nido Qubein at High Point University, Richard Joel at Yeshiva University, and Nicholas Zeppos at Vanderbilt University.

For the record, since 2008, 77 presidents have appeared on the list of millionaires at least once.  And  last year’s top earner, Shirley Ann Jackson, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), posted a decrease in compensation of almost $6 million, dropping her down to number 14 on this year’s list.

Yet despite what appear to be huge compensation packages, the president is not always the top-paid employee at nearly a quarter of private colleges. Coaches were the top earners seven percent of the time.

Locally, the highest paid college presidents are Ronald Daniels at Johns Hopkins, Steven Knapp at GW, Sidney Ribeau at Howard, Cornelius Kerwin at American, Jerry Falwell at Liberty, John DeGioia at Georgetown, Edward Ayers at the University of Richmond, and Charles Steger at Virginia Tech.

The updated compensation report came from data compiled by The Chronicle on 558 chief executives at 498 private nonprofit colleges and 238 chief executives at 220 public universities and systems.  A handful of colleges and universities refused to provide data.

Highest paid private college presidents in 2013

• Lee Bollinger, Columbia University:  $4,615,230
• Amy Gutmann, University of Pennsylvania:  $3,065,746
• Nido Qubein, High Point University:  $2,909,148
• Richard Joel, Yeshiva University:  $2,503,794
• Nicholas Zeppos, Vanderbilt University:  $2,147,452
• Scott Cowen, Tulane University:  $1,634,000
• Ronald Daniels, Johns Hopkins University:  $1,629,325
• Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Rockefeller University:  $1,459,267
• John Sexton, New York University:  $1,452,992
• C.L. Max Nikias, University of Southern California:   $1,422,458
• Victor Boschini, Texas Christian University:  $1,364,696
• Robert Zimmer, University of Chicago:  $1,337,869
• Donna Shalala, University of Miami:  $1,309,328
• Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:  $1,304,445
• John Fry, Drexel University:  $1,288,645

Highest paid public college presidents

• Rodney Erickson, Pennsylvania State University:  $1,494,603
• R. Bowen Loftin, Texas A&M University at College Station:  $1,128,957
• Joseph Alutto, Ohio University:  $996,169
• Elson Floyd, Washington State University:  $877,250
• Paula Allen-Meares, University of Illinois at Chicago:  $872,458
• Francisco Cigarroa, University of Texas system:  $864,660
• Renu Khator, University of Houston:  $850,000
• Patrick Harker, University of Delaware:  $800,156
• Charles Steger, Virginia Tech:  $745,195
• Robert Witt, University of Alabama system:  $745,000
• Robert Barchi, Rutgers University at New Brunswick:  $739,624
• Judy Genshaft, University of South Florida:  $719,675
• John Sharp, Texas A&M University system office:  $708,435
• Mary Sue Coleman, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor:  $703,357
• Eli Capilouto, University of Kentucky:  $688,000

Gearing up for campus visits

It’s getting close to that time of year again—the time of year when college campuses shift gears and formally welcome a whole new crop of prospective applicants coming to check out facilities, tour grounds and otherwise feel the vibe. 

And make no mistake the campus tour is much more than a simple rite of passage for the college-bound—usually high school juniors. It’s an opportunity to do everything from sampling food and enjoying the carefully groomed landscape to sitting in on a lecture and admiring the new climbing wall (which is bound to be the largest and most challenging in the region).  

A campus visit is your chance to get a firsthand view of a college. Websites, catalogs and brochures are marketing tools. They are good for introducing a college but they hardly tell the whole story.  Frankly, it's really difficult to get a feel for a place or envision a future in a particular community without actually being there. And considering the investment involved as well as the impact the next four years will have on your life, a college visit could be well worth your time.

Note that it’s generally a bad plan to save campus visits until after you’ve been admitted. These trips should be fundamental to building your college list on the front end, not eliminating schools on the back end.

And be aware that a side benefit of these trips is the opportunity to develop relationships with college admissions offices. It’s no secret that many schools (whether they admit it or not) capture data on visits and factor it into an estimate of how interested you are in the school as well as how likely you are to attend should you be offered admission.  This information can be very very important to some colleges, and so you always want a school to know when you’re planning to be on campus.

Key elements of a basic college visit should include a stop in the admissions office hopefully including an admissions presentation or information session; a campus tour—conducted by the college or on your own; opportunities to meet staff including professors in fields of interest, coaches or support staff; time to meet and chat with current students; a review of extracurricular, athletic or other special opportunities; a look at residence halls and dining facilities; and an introduction to the surrounding college community or town.  A more in-depth visit might also include sitting in on a class or two or an overnight in a residence hall.

To get a real feel for a college, it’s best to visit when school is in session—not during vacations or final exam weeks. Seeing a campus when classes and activities are in full swing will give you a much fuller picture of what life is like as an undergraduate.  Scheduling a visit during the week will provide you with a sense of the hustle and bustle of an active campus, but extending the visit to the weekend will suggest how lively the campus remains when classes aren’t in session.

Unfortunately, student or parent schedules don’t always mesh with college schedules. You don’t have control over when your spring break or various long weekends will take place, although they are usually posted years in advance. And you certainly don’t have control over college breaks which aren’t even remotely consistent across the universe of postsecondary institutions.

To help with the planning of college tours, several travel agencies (with varying agendas) and others have assembled lists of spring break dates for 2016.  Some like StudentCity are searchable by college name or state.  Others like STS Travel are a little more geographically targeted and organized by date. 

Starting with the University of Chicago, which went on break February 13, and concluding with Kennesaw State University, which ends its break on April 9, 2016, these lists can be valuable tools for scheduling trips. They also provide a feel for regional variations in academic calendars which may be factors in developing your college list.

Another fantastic resource for organizing college visits is Hedberg’s U.S. College and University Reference Map, which locates and indexes more than 1,400 four-year schools in the U.S and Canada.  The map measures approximately 39.5 x 27 inches and not only provides a general idea of proximity—how close colleges are to one another—but also identifies institutions as public or private, single-sex and religiously affiliated.

If spring break doesn’t work because of other obligations, note that visiting campuses during the summer months or other less active times of the year is better than not visiting at all. And if you know you’re going to need an interview, be sure to factor the interview schedule into your plans.  They tend to be available during slower months on campus.

Regardless of when you visit and where you are in the application process, be sure to do your homework first.  Let the college know you are coming by completing whatever registration process they have in place and take the time to thoroughly review the information contained on college webpages. 

Above all, don’t simply go along for the ride. Get the most out of your college visits by being an informed consumer who actively listens and isn’t afraid to ask tough questions.

The Common App answers questions about ‘Account Rollover’

Last fall, officials from the Common Application announced that applicant accounts created during 2015-16 would roll over into 2016-17. It was assumed that the new ‘Account Rollover’ plan would work similar to the system by which recommender accounts already carried from one year to the next.

But applicant accounts proved to be a little trickier and the plan as originally described produced an enormous number of questions, as anxious high school juniors and even younger students rushed to open Common App accounts and begin what they thought would be the process of applying to college.

Concerned that their desire to provide a tool to introduce their application early to a potentially loyal base of customers was backfiring slightly and producing unnecessary stress among younger students, the Common App issued an advisory designed to clarify not only the process of ‘Account Rollover’ but the intent as well.

According to the Common App, “It [Account Rollover] is intended to be a learning tool, not a means of completing college applications prior to senior year.”

And to underscore this objective, the Common App created a series of presentations and accompanying scripts labeled Common App Ready, which cover elements of the application from account registration through final submission. This material, along with a few very conservative adjustments to the software accommodating Account Rollover, makes it clear that the accounts created by underclassmen this year are to be used to explore and get familiar with the application. Any time saved or “leg up” on the process is ancillary and not to be considered a primary reason for using the tool.  

In other words, the Common App is not encouraging high school freshmen to get started now by opening an account or completing any element of the application. This resource is not to be confused with “The Locker” or efforts on the part of the competing Coalition Application to have students start the process of applying to college as soon as they have access to a computer.

“This resource is designed to help everyone who is a part of the college process—from students and parents to teachers and counselors—explore and understand the Common Application.”

So how will Account Rollover work? After the 2016-17 Common App launches on August 1, 2016, students will be able to sign in using the same email and password created during an earlier registration. They will be asked if they would like to roll over that account and will be asked to confirm:

• Who they are (current applicant, other student, counselor, parent etc.)
• Communication opt-in selection (whether to receive mail from colleges or not)
• Current high school
• Agreement with Privacy Policy
• Colleges listed on ‘My Colleges’ (this has some importance for institutional marketing plans)

Once that information is established, the Common App will migrate responses from the 2015-16 account onto the 2016-17 form. Answer to any questions appearing in the six sections of the “Common App” tab—Profile, Family, Education, Testing, Activities and Writing—will be preserved.

Information that will not carry over includes

• Responses entered for “college-specific” questions and Writing Supplements
• The student Release Authorization and FERPA selection (this has implications for Naviance users)
• Any recommender invitations, assignments and forms
• PDFs of Common Applications and Writing Supplements submitted the prior year
• Responses to any questions that were removed from the application
• Responses to any questions that may have a different format or different response options from the prior year (for 2016-17, this will include at a minimum the “Testing” section given changes in score reporting)

Because First-Year and Transfer accounts are distinct within the Common App system, these will not roll over from one year to the other.  There are complications here that require more time to resolve.

Similar to previous years, Recommender accounts will carry over, but the process is slightly different from the process used by applicants. Upon receiving the first invitation from a student for 2016-17, Recommenders will be able to sign in using the same credentials as 2015-16. Once signed in, they will find their Profile information populated with responses from the previous year, which can then be up-dated as necessary. Old invitations, assignments and forms will not carry over.

For student using Naviance eDocs, completing the Release Authorization and FERPA selection will remain a prerequisite for matching accounts. Since those responses will not carry over from one year to the next, students will need to complete or re-complete those elements of the application before they are able to match their Common App and Naviance accounts.

As currently envisioned, Account Rollover will be an annual process for all users, without consideration as to grade level or user type. So in theory, a student who creates a Common App account as a freshman and goes through the rollover process each year would be able to carry that account through to senior year.

But that doesn’t mean they should.

Additional questions are bound to occur as counselors and students begin experimenting with the process.  These should go to the Common App Solutions Center.

UVa ranks high in value for 2016

The University of Virginia continued its impressive showing on national “best value” rankings by moving up two spots on the Princeton Review’s 2016 list of top 50 schools providing the highest return on the cost of tuition.

In “Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Schools that Give You the Best Bang for Your Tuition Buck—2016 Edition,” Virginia came in second place among top public universities (after UC Berkeley) and No. 14 overall among the “Top 50 Colleges that Pay You Back”.

Princeton Review selected schools based on a comprehensive analysis of more than 650 colleges, weiging over 40 data points to tally ROI (return on investment) ratings for the schools. Data analyzed covered academics, cost, financial aid, graduation rates, student debt and more. It also factored in data from PayScale.com.

Awarding UVa a “return-on-investment” rating of 94 (out of 100), Princeton Review editors praised the University for exerting “a tremendous effort to ensure that its undergraduates have access to an affordable education regardless of economic circumstances.”

                                                                                                                

Princeton Review also ranked UVa seventh for best return for students who do not qualify for financial aid (up four spots from last year) and 11^th for best alumni network.

“On so many fronts that matter to parents and students alike, these colleges are truly standouts,” said Robert Franek, the Princeton Review’s senior vice president and publisher, and the lead author of the book. “They offer outstanding academics and generous financial aid to students with need and/or charge a relatively low cost of attendance. Some, phenomenally, do both. Their students also have access to extraordinary career services programs and a lifetime of alumni connections and post-grad support.”

The top 6 schools in the overall ranking included some familiar names among private institutions:  Cal Tech (1), Princeton (2), The Cooper Union (3), Harvey Mudd (4), MIT (5), Stanford (6)—all of which coincidently have strong science, engineering, technology and math (STEM) undergraduate programs.

In addition to UVa at 14, top public institutions on the Princeton Review list were UC Berkeley (8), UCLA (24), and UC Santa Barbara (35). 

And other Virginia schools to be included among the 200 Colleges That Pay You Back were the College of William and Mary, Virginia Tech, George Mason University, Hampden-Sydney College, James Madison University, and the University of Richmond.

In December, UVa made a similarly impressive showing on Kiplinger’s Best College Values in Public Colleges for 2016, coming in third after the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Florida but ahead of UC Berkeley. 

Also named in this ranking were the College of William and Mary, James Madison University, Virginia Tech, and Christopher Newport University.

And in the U.S. News ranking of “Best Value Schools,” UVa ranked fourth among public national universities after UNC Chapel Hill, Texas A&M, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Irvine.

Disclosure: Nancy Griesemer is a member of the Princeton Review National College Counselor Advisory Board, 2015-16.