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How educated are state legislators?

June 13, 2011 Comments off

How educated are state legislators?
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle has looked at where each of the 7,000-plus state legislators in America went to college—or whether they went at all. In doing so, we got a glimpse of how the citizens who hold these seats reflect the average American experience.

Categories: Chronicle of Higher Education, education, government and politics, postsecondary

Presidents Defend Their Pay as Public Colleges Slash Budgets

April 4, 2011 Comments off

Presidents Defend Their Pay as Public Colleges Slash Budgets
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

If there’s a sure lesson from the economic recession, it’s that perception matters.

When Wall Street bankers took taxpayer bailouts and then made off with big bonuses, they were vilified. Moral outrage ensued when chief executives of the Big Three automakers flew into Washington on private jets to ask for a government rescue.

Indeed, America’s anemic economy ensures that people at the top of the heap, including some public-university presidents, will often have targets on their backs, particularly if they are asking for more state or federal support.

The highest-paid public-college executives, who receive compensation packages in the high six figures and more, walk a difficult political tightrope. They must at once argue that their state budgets have been cut to the bone and need to be restored, while at the same time acknowledging their rarefied personal financial circumstances in states where layoffs, program closures, and pay reductions have been all too common. In making that case, presidents and the trustees who set their salaries have for years argued that, irrespective of economic conditions, those presidential pay levels are fair, necessary, and performance-driven. While that case appears to have been effectively made in many states, some higher-education officials and compensation experts say a prolonged budget crisis could hamstring the wealthiest presidents as they argue that their institutions are deserving of increasingly scarce public resources.

Includes charts of highest paid chief executive officers at public colleges, 2009-2010.

Categories: Chronicle of Higher Education, management, postsecondary, salaries and wages
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