The Pietist Schoolman

About six months ago I explored the question, “How Well Paid Are Christian College Faculty?“, and found that “even the best of the evangelical college set can struggle to keep up with their self-defined peers” when it comes to paying professors.

Is the same true of our bosses?

On Sunday the Chronicle of Higher Education made available data related to the compensation of 550 presidents serving the 500 private colleges and universities in the United States with the largest endowments reported to the Department of Education. (More presidents than schools because some executives served only part of 2011, the most recent year for which tax return data were available.) By my count 39 presidents of member-institutions in the evangelical Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) were included — 7.1% of the Chronicle set and one-third of the CCCU.

The median CCCU president in the report earned $297,543 — about $82,000 less than the median for the entire set of 550. Indeed, only seven were in the top half of earners: (I’m going by total compensation, not just base bay)

Since, all things being equal, we’d expect more than twice that many names above the median, it might seem that the presidents of evangelical colleges and universities are less well-paid than those of  nonsectarian or other religious institutions. But keep in mind that this list of schools includes everything from major research universities to small liberal arts colleges (and at least two dozen Catholic schools that are recorded as paying their presidents $0, since any salary is given to that person’s religious order rather then individual her- or himself).

The Chronicle assigns each college or university a comparison group of 10-12 peers sharing similar institutional characteristics (though not necessarily religion), student demographics, and financial profiles. Here’s how each of the seven highest-paid CCCU executives fares in those comparisons:

For the record, my own boss, Jay Barnes of Bethel University, does not appear in the 2011 data because — as noted previously — Bethel’s endowment is rather undersized. In 2010, when the Chronicle selected private colleges and universities with at least $50 million in expenditures, Jay came in at #366 out of 494 — side by side with Alan Cureton of Northwestern, our CCCU peer down Snelling Avenue, and behind eight other Minnesota private college presidents.)

Perhaps a better way to answer our question is to consider another column in the Chronicle table: presidential compensation per million dollars of total expenditures. (It can sound ridiculous that in 2011 the president of my graduate alma mater received over $1.6 million in total compensation — until you realize that of every $1 million spent by Yale, $616 went into Richard Levin’s pocket. And two of his employees made more than he did!) And here the story is quite different:

• Two-thirds of the CCCU presidents in the table are in the top 50%
• The CCCU median ($5,858) is higher than the overall median ($5,466)
• Seven CCCU presidents make the Chronicle top 100 when their compensation is expressed as a share of expenditures

Strikingly, of the twenty-six men and women in the top 50% by this standard, nearly half (12) preside over schools associated with the Southern Baptist Convention. (Please see the comment below from one Baptist in Texas explaining why “associated with the Southern Baptist Convention” is a problematic labeling on my part.) In addition to Howard Payne, East Texas Baptist, Dallas Baptist, Anderson, and Louisiana College on the table above, Hardin-Simmons, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Union, Oklahoma Baptist, Carson-Newman, Houston Baptist, and Mississippi College make that list.

None of the thirteen schools below the median has such a religious affiliation, and if you remove the Southern Baptist schools, the CCCU median drops by 15%, to $4,985 of presidential compensation per million dollars of expenditures.

On the larger question of whether college and university presidents are paid appropriately, see Jack Stripling’s related article in the Chronicle. Julia Ryan defended such compensation for The Atlantic yesterday: “…these men and women are making big money running private universities, and students struggling to pay for textbooks might be frustrated by the substantial cash flow to their school’s chief executive officer. At the same time, most university presidents could be making a lot more money running companies in the private sector. If universities are going to increase financial aid dollars, embrace new educational methods, and improve graduation rates, they need a capable, smart, and, yes, well-compensated president at the helm.”