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News

Highest-Paid Chief Executives at Private Nonprofit Colleges, 2014

Almanac 2017 August 13, 2017

The base salary of the most highly compensated chief executive of a private nonprofit institution in 2014 — Jack P. Varsalona, of Wilmington University, in Delaware — represented less than 10 percent of his pay. He received more than $4.6 million in a payout of deferred compensation that year. In contrast, two other leaders — Jerry Falwell Jr., of Liberty University, and Joel Seligman, of the University of Rochester — made it into the top 50 based almost entirely on their salaries alone.

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The base salary of the most highly compensated chief executive of a private nonprofit institution in 2014 — Jack P. Varsalona, of Wilmington University, in Delaware — represented less than 10 percent of his pay. He received more than $4.6 million in a payout of deferred compensation that year. In contrast, two other leaders — Jerry Falwell Jr., of Liberty University, and Joel Seligman, of the University of Rochester — made it into the top 50 based almost entirely on their salaries alone.


Return to the Almanac home page, or go to the Profession, Students, Finance, or States section. To purchase a copy of the Almanac in print or as a downloadable interactive PDF, visit the Chronicle Store.


Rank Chief executiveInstitutionTotal compensationBase salaryBase salary as % of total compensation
1. Jack P. Varsalona Wilmington U. (Del.) $5,449,405 $427,345 7.8%
2. Mark S. Wrighton Washington U. in St. Louis
$4,185,866 $943,583 22.5%
3. R. Gerald Turner Southern Methodist U. $3,354,128 $664,342 19.8%
4. Amy Gutmann U. of Pennsylvania $2,962,708 $1,216,096 41.0%
5. Lee C. Bollinger Columbia U. $2,447,032 $1,298,577 53.1%
6. Morton O. Schapiro Northwestern U. $2,352,578 $924,658 39.3%
7. Robert Fisher Belmont U. $2,120,091 $1,019,999 48.1%
8. Robert J. Zimmer U. of Chicago $2,051,089 $1,021,671 49.8%
9. James F. Jones Jr. Trinity College (Conn.) $1,661,794 $452,606 27.2%
10. David J. Skorton Cornell U. $1,618,328 $872,800 53.9%
11. Donna E. Shalala U. of Miami $1,570,761 $1,095,833 69.8%
12. C.L. Max Nikias U. of Southern California $1,525,297 $1,108,597 72.7%
13. Ronald R. Thomas U. of Puget Sound $1,509,650 $475,529 31.5%
14. Arthur F. Kirk Jr. Saint Leo U. $1,509,342 $388,863 25.8%
15. Lewis M. Duncan* Rollins College $1,497,248 $251,100 16.8%
16. John E. Sexton New York U. $1,484,685 $1,242,948 83.7%
17. Ronald J. Daniels Johns Hopkins U. $1,417,109 $1,074,411 75.8%
18. Nicholas S. Zeppos Vanderbilt U. $1,377,924 $947,489 68.8%
19. Shirley Ann Jackson Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute $1,331,172 $1,000,000 75.1%
20. Victor J. Boschini Jr. Texas Christian U. $1,324,540 $1,042,233 78.7%
21. William D. Adams* Colby College $1,298,075 $220,980 17.0%
22. John A. Fry Drexel U. $1,284,630 $802,218 62.4%
23. Steadman Upham U. of Tulsa $1,221,152 $704,620 57.7%
24. Robert A. Brown Boston U. $1,218,869 $856,182 70.2%
25. Joel Seligman U. of Rochester $1,218,170 $1,128,582 92.6%
26. Richard H. Brodhead Duke U. $1,200,386 $911,794 76.0%
27. Steven Knapp George Washington U. $1,170,264 $873,191 74.6%
28. John L. Lahey Quinnipiac U. $1,157,272 $848,000 73.3%
29. Barbara R. Snyder Case Western Reserve U. $1,154,775 $718,493 62.2%
30. David E. Van Zandt New School $1,122,876 $631,125 56.2%
31. Joseph E. Aoun Northeastern U. $1,090,414 $755,306 69.3%
32. Nathan O. Hatch Wake Forest U. $1,084,511 $816,207 75.3%
33. James W. Wagner Emory U. $1,075,464 $937,000 87.1%
34. John L. Hennessy Stanford U. $1,051,338 $884,765 84.2%
35. David W. Leebron Rice U. $1,048,994 $820,411 78.2%
36. Edward L. Ayers U. of Richmond $1,044,367 $516,255 49.4%
37. Andrew K. Benton Pepperdine U. $1,038,605 $423,572 40.8%
38. Nido Qubein High Point U. $1,018,707 $662,617 65.0%
39. John I. Jenkins U. of Notre Dame $1,005,548 $680,812 67.7%
40. Anthony J. Catanese Florida Institute of Technology $995,323 $582,500 58.5%
41. Peter Salovey Yale U. $977,219 $845,240 86.5%
42. Cornelius M. Kerwin American U. $972,741 $649,868 66.8%
43. Drew Gilpin Faust Harvard U. $969,830 $810,884 83.6%
44. L. Rafael Reif Massachusetts Institute of Technology $954,887 $796,966 83.5%
45. Wayne Frederick Howard U. $953,104 $832,450 87.3%
46. Philip Hanlon Dartmouth College $940,889 $815,635 86.7%
47. Frederick M. Lawrence Brandeis U. $937,752 $723,440 77.1%
48. William W. Destler Rochester Institute of Technology $927,738 $800,330 86.3%
49. Jerry Falwell Jr. Liberty U. $926,634 $896,610 96.8%
50. Douglas N. Hastad Carroll U. $905,003 $392,320 43.4%

*Served for only part of 2014

Note: Rank is for total compensation in the 2014 calendar year. Included in total compensation, in addition to base pay, are bonus pay, nontaxable benefits like medical benefits, severance pay, payouts of deferred compensation, and any other reportable pay. Not counted is deferred or retirement compensation set aside in the calendar year to be paid out in later years. The Chronicle’s analysis is based on data for the private nonprofit baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral institutions with the 500 largest endowments, as reported to the U.S Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The top-50 list is drawn from data covering 516 presidents and chancellors who served at 499 institutions for all or part of 2014. The average total compensation for leaders in office for the full year at those institutions was $512,987. Nonprofit colleges that do not report the value of their endowments to the Education Department were excluded from the analysis. Compensation data were compiled from the Internal Revenue Service’s Form 990, which is filed by most nonprofit entities. Some private nonprofit universities cite a religious exemption from filing the Form 990 and were excluded from the analysis. Complete data can be found at www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensation.

A version of this article appeared in the August 18, 2017, issue.
Read other items in The Profession.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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