Executive Compensation Climbs, Bringing Protests
Monday, November 17, 2008College Presidents Cashing In, Study Says:
The number of college and university presidents taking home eye-popping paychecks continues to climb – even as more and more students have trouble paying their tuition bills.
Fifty-nine presidents of public universities reeled in more than $500,000 in salary and benefits during the 2007-08 academic year, more than double the number who broke the half-million mark three years earlier, according to a survey by the Chronicle of Higher Education released on Monday.
Really? Why hasn’t Congress written compensation caps into the law? After all, hundreds of millions of federal dollars flow to these bloated, inefficient institutions every year.
More seriously, this brings us back to a point that came up in a talk at the American Enterprise Institute by Charles Murray, author of Real Education, which criticizes the nation’s emphasis on a four-year baccalaureate degree as the only education worth having.
If that’s so, and a structure of technical education with certification is a preferable system generally, then how do we get there from here? Universities and colleges are entrenched institutions, economically and politically.
Murray suggested many of the colleges would price themselves out of existence.
See Washington Post, October 30, “Cost of Higher Education Heading Up”