Enter the “compensation experts”

"ALL the vice-chancellors of NSW earn more than $500,000 a year and the first official $1 million-a-year university executive is on the way.

As the salaries of university chief executives soar far in excess of those paid to top academics, the vice-chancellor of Macquarie University, Steven Schwartz, is the best paid on a package worth more than $800,000, according to annual reports released in State Parliament this week.

For many senior university executives, remuneration has increased dramatically despite the global financial crisis".

"Pay packets head to $1m but academics left behind"
HEATH GILMORE
June 5, 2010

Salaries for university presidents rose by 7.6 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to an annual survey released by the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this month. Much like their Wall Street counterparts, presidents of both public and private colleges and universities have enjoyed years of pay increases in sharp contrast to the deteriorating conditions of workers and students.

The latest data available from the College Board shows that tuition for public university students in the US increased by 6.3 percent from 2006 to 2007, another year in which tuition rose much faster than inflation. As the economic crisis intensifies, public universities nationwide are trimming workers’ wages and raising tuition, while top-earning presidents rake in millions.

David J. Sargent, president of Suffolk University in Boston, received $2.8 million in 2006-2007. The university decided to raise his salary after a “compensation expert” determined that his 2005-2006 salary of $416,971 was less than 75 percent of the national average, and that he was “woefully underpaid.” One wonders where the “compensation experts” are for analyzing the pay for part-time faculty, student, and service workers at universities.

US: University presidents’ pay rises to record levels
By Jeff Lassahn
24 November 2008

Academic salaries are being squeezed in the current crises, as colleges and universities attempt to balance their books by fleecing the faculty.

According to the annual salary survey by the American Association of University Professors, overall salaries for this academic year are 1.2 percent higher than last year, the smallest increase recorded in the survey’s 50 years—and well below the 2.7 percent inflation rate from December 2008 to December 2009.

"Fleecing the faculty"
David F. Ruccio