State’s top higher ed salaries trail average

Public college presidents earned an average $501,398 in fiscal year 2016, an increase of 5.3 percent from the prior year, an analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education shows.

The analysis is based on 254 university presidents and chancellors from 221 colleges and higher education systems. The Chronicle collected the data from all public doctoral universities in the United States and all state college and university systems or governing boards with at least three campuses and 50,000 total students.

Arizona State University President Michael Crow topped the list, with a compensation just over $1.5 million.

Three Oklahoma higher education chief executives are included in the analysis — the presidents of Oklahoma’s two largest universities and the chancellor of the state’s higher education system. Each earned salaries below the national average, according to the report released Wednesday.

Neighboring Texas, however, took three of the top 10 spots for the second consecutive year.

The chancellor of the University of Texas system came in second at $1.5 million. The chancellor of the Texas A&M University system was third at $1,280,438, and the president of Texas A&M University at College Station was paid $1 million.

Texas has a large donor base to help fund those salaries and less regulation than states that restrict how much college presidents can be paid, said Dan Bauman, author of the report.

“There’s a lot of competition,” Bauman said. “What they tell us is they want to win. They want to be the best.”

Oklahoma salaries

The Chronicle report includes base pay, bonus pay, nontaxable benefits and other miscellaneous payments. It does not include allowance paid for things like housing, car or travel.

“We remove those fringe benefits in calculating that total compensation,” Bauman said. Those payments skew the numbers for the purpose of comparison because they vary so much by geography, he said.

The report lists University of Oklahoma President David Boren’s compensation at $449,256. It notes no fringe benefits were reported for Boren, who has served as OU president for 23 years.

Boren lives in historic Boyd House on the OU campus. Built in 1906 by OU’s first president, it was converted to offices in 1969. Boren made its restoration a condition of his accepting the job as OU’s president. About $2 million in private funding was raised for the twoyear renovation.

The salary for Burns Hargis, president of Oklahoma State University since 2008, is listed at $434,760. The report notes Hargis also receives house, car and travel expenses. The fringe benefit total is $57,500, OSU spokesman Gary Shutt said.

The report lists a salary of $329,129 for Glen Johnson, who was named chancellor of the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education in 2007. Before that, he was president of Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant for 10 years.

Johnson also receives a $24,000 housing allowance and a $20,000 car allowance, higher education system spokeswoman Angela Caddell said.

Among Big 12 schools, West Virginia University had the 23rd highest president’s compensation at $779,323. The University of Texas was 27th at $761,570.