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Big Money Men on Campuses

By

Jen Chung

Published Jun 20, 2006

Modified Mar 7, 2008

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By

Jen Chung

Published Jun 20, 2006

Modified Mar 7, 2008

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Mothers and fathers, don't just dream about your children being doctors (well, doctors might be passe, given malpractice coverage), lawyers or hedge fund managers: Have them set their sights on being the president of a major university. amNew York has a feature on salaries of NYC college/university presidents. The presidents are mostly charged with fund-raising, hence needing a real "performer" that gets a sweet compensation package, but the money they make can be pretty sick (note: private institutions pay more, natch).

amNew York has a breakdown of salaries, but here's a sampling of a few (note that expenses include things like housing, transportation, travel):

NYU's John Sexton
Pay: $765,559; Benefits: $33, 430; Expense account: $89,131
Total pay package: $888,120

Columbia's Lee Bollinger
Pay: $664,180; Benefits: $21,750; Expense Account: $93,743
Total pay package: $779,673

Brooklyn College's Christoph Kimmich
Pay: $198,392; Benefits: housing in state owned residence

Pace University's David Caputo
president since 2000
Pay: $594,877; Benefits: $77,362; Expense account: $0
Total pay package: $672,239

Cooper Union's Dr. Roger Campbell, Jr.
Pay: $291,650; Benefits: $20,399; Expense account: $98,897
Total pay package: $312,049

New School's Bob Kerrey
Pay: $440,000; Benefits $95,750; Expense account: $6,700
Total pay package: $542,450

Yeah, we can see why it might be hard to take NYU President Sexton seriously when he speaks about striking graduate students. On the other hand, these schools can be billion-dollar operations, and the presidents aren't getting stock perks (that we know of!), so maybe their pay is somewhat explainable. What do you think?

Photograph of NYU classroom from Jake Dobkin

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Jen Chung

Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.

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