Arnn earns 4% salary hike last year
Joel Pavelski
Issue date: 2/5/09 Section: News
In a study released in November by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn ranked fourth in a list of the country's highest-paid private college presidents.
The survey reported a 4 percent increase during the 2006-2007 school year, amounting to $17,796 and bringing his annual salary and benefits to $550,192. The increase reflects a national trend of growing salaries for college presidents and rising costs of higher education, at least before the current economic crisis.
Although the figures from the survey are the most recent available, they reflect numbers from before the onset of the crisis.
Chief Administrative Officer Kenneth Cole said the percentage that the president's salary increases has typically been the same standard percentage that Hillsdale College tuition increases in a given year.
"The trend has been that the college goes up a certain percent and the president goes up that same percent," he said.
In the 2007-08 fiscal year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, median compensation for presidents of liberal arts colleges saw a 6.5 percent increase, while tuition increased by 6.6 percent. The number of private-school presidents earning more than $500,000 climbed 10 percent to 89 percent. College officials say that the increases are necessary to attract the kind of talent that overseeing their institution requires.
As for whether or not the president's salary will increase in the coming fiscal year, Cole said the college's board of trustees will have to decide.
"Right now, the college has frozen salaries, the entire campus knows that," he said.
"My guess is that the trustees will also freeze the president's when they meet in May. But they might not, it's up to them."
Arnn's salary is determined yearly by a prudential committee of the board of trustees. They review the annual goals of the president, and determine his salary and his annual bonus.
His salary has been in the top ten among liberal arts college presidents for a decade, and it reached the top three in 2003.
"I'd like to see him as the top-paid president because of what he does," Cole said, "even though he has stated that he does not want to be that top person."
Although it is rumored that Arnn donates a significant portion of his salary back to the school, to protect privacy the college does not release the names of donors or donation amounts, Cole said.
Arnn declined to comment on the record.
The survey reported a 4 percent increase during the 2006-2007 school year, amounting to $17,796 and bringing his annual salary and benefits to $550,192. The increase reflects a national trend of growing salaries for college presidents and rising costs of higher education, at least before the current economic crisis.
Although the figures from the survey are the most recent available, they reflect numbers from before the onset of the crisis.
Chief Administrative Officer Kenneth Cole said the percentage that the president's salary increases has typically been the same standard percentage that Hillsdale College tuition increases in a given year.
"The trend has been that the college goes up a certain percent and the president goes up that same percent," he said.
In the 2007-08 fiscal year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, median compensation for presidents of liberal arts colleges saw a 6.5 percent increase, while tuition increased by 6.6 percent. The number of private-school presidents earning more than $500,000 climbed 10 percent to 89 percent. College officials say that the increases are necessary to attract the kind of talent that overseeing their institution requires.
As for whether or not the president's salary will increase in the coming fiscal year, Cole said the college's board of trustees will have to decide.
"Right now, the college has frozen salaries, the entire campus knows that," he said.
"My guess is that the trustees will also freeze the president's when they meet in May. But they might not, it's up to them."
Arnn's salary is determined yearly by a prudential committee of the board of trustees. They review the annual goals of the president, and determine his salary and his annual bonus.
His salary has been in the top ten among liberal arts college presidents for a decade, and it reached the top three in 2003.
"I'd like to see him as the top-paid president because of what he does," Cole said, "even though he has stated that he does not want to be that top person."
Although it is rumored that Arnn donates a significant portion of his salary back to the school, to protect privacy the college does not release the names of donors or donation amounts, Cole said.
Arnn declined to comment on the record.
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