Matt Taibbi: Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

[JDPriestly]

19. Have you looked at the salaries of college administrators recently?

Last year, E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University, was the highest-paid public university president, with more than $2 million in compensation. In this year's list, he was the public president with the highest base salary at $830,439 in 2011-12, up from $814,157 the previous year.

. . . .

The average public university president earned $441,392 in the last fiscal year, but there were four who earned more than $1 million despite state and local budget cuts and financially struggling public school systems.

Median total compensation increased 4.7 percent for the 2011-2012 year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the weekly newspaper that collects this data annually.

The newspaper released 2010 data about private university president salaries in December. The highest-paid president on that list was Bob Kerrey of the New School in New York City, which he left in 2010. He received $3,047,703 in total compensation that year.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/penn-states-spanier-leads-top-11-highest-paid/story?id=19151598