HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A gilded goodbye for many private college leaders: Presidents’ retirement pay and perks can run into the millions, one more driver of soaring college tuition costs.
“There is puzzlement from faculty about why he gets paid at all” by Brandeis, said Gordon Fellman, a sociology professor at Brandeis. “His term as president ended.”
Like Reinharz, many other college presidents across the country are negotiating huge exit packages when they step down, which critics say is emblematic of schools’ unrestrained spending on everything from administrative salaries to elaborate new buildings that drive up the cost of higher education. Schools and public records say:
Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Tufts, received $1.7 million in 2011 for “end of service compensation.” At Harvard, president Lawrence Summers kept his presidential salary of $580,000 for several years after he stepped down in 2006 (even as he earned millions working for a hedge fund). And Wellesley College had two former presidents on its payroll in the last six years, including one who received $430,000 a year for two years after she retired and her duties ended.
Reinharz, formerly one of the best paid college presidents in the country, has received at least $1.2 million more from Brandeis since his 2010 retirement and is in line to receive hundreds of thousands more in coming years.
“We’re seeing more and more of these farewell packages to presidents,” said Andrew Gillen, senior researcher with Education Sector at American Institutes for Research, a Washington think tank. “It’s symbolic of the growth of the cost of college.”
Rising administrative expenses are one reason that the average cost of higher education has soared 70 percent during the past decade — twice the rate of inflation — and elite schools such as Brandeis now charge nearly $60,000 a year or more for tuition, room, and board. The number of college administrative jobs has increased 57 percent during 10 years while pay for university presidents has ballooned, with dozens of college leaders receiving at least $1 million a year.
Public-choice economics has an explanation for this . . . .