Penn State President Graham Spanier is one of the highest paid public university presidents, according to a recent report -- but rankings can be deceiving, officials said.
The ranking, published by The Chronicle of Higher Educa-tion, lists Spanier as receiving the sixth-highest base salary at $620,000 for the 2008-09 academic year. Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee was ranked first, with a base salary of $802,125.
But Spanier's name did not appear on the list of the top 10 public university presidents in terms of total compensation, as he does not receive many of the benefits included in extra incentive packages offered at other universities, Penn State spokeswoman Annemarie Mountz said.
All incentive packages and salary dollars considered, Spanier was listed as 18th on the list of highest paid public university presidents, tabulated using self-reported data from 185 public institutions.
"Look at all of the perks and incentives included in other peoples' salaries," Mountz said. "None of that is applicable to President Spanier. He has his salary, and then beyond that, he lives in a university house. He doesn't get a housing allowance, and he drives a university-owned car."
Mountz also said Spanier refused a raise for the 2009-10 academic year because he didn't want to accept extra money while other faculty salaries remained frozen. And she made special note of the money he and his wife Sandra have donated to the school.
"President Spanier and his wife have donated a million dollars to Penn State," Mountz said. "That's one of the largest such gifts of a president in American higher education."
According to Penn State's 2009 Right To Know report, Spanier didn't even crack the top-5 list of highest-paid university employees between 2007 and 2008. That list is topped by Joe Paterno, who made more than $1 million, according to the report.
Though the top 10 leaders in total compensation, which begins with Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow at $709,196 and ends with Gee at $1,576,825, may be astonishing to some, these figures are not remarkable as compared to the salaries reported by private university administrators.
Jeff Selingo, editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, said there were 23 presidents of private colleges whose total compensation totaled a million dollars or more. But in the public sector, only Ohio State's president cracked the million-dollar mark.
"These are incredibly difficult jobs," Selingo said. "These are large institutions. They oversee essentially many cities. Public colleges are much bigger, broader institutions."
With increased tuition likely for next year, some families may question Spanier's top-earning status, but Mountz and Selingo said there is no significant correlation between the two variables.
"A rise in $100,000 dollars of a president's salary will equate to pennies in tuition," Selingo said. "There's a perception thing there with high tuition and high president's salary. The president would have to be making millions of dollars to impact the tuition bill."
