Salaries Up 4% for Senior Administrators

The salary picture for senior-level administrators was healthy this academic year – at least before the economic crisis started forcing many colleges to cut expenses. For 2008-9, the median base salary for senior administrators was up 4 percent, the same as it was the previous two years, according to data released today by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.

With the rate of inflation calculated at 3.8 percent for the period, administrators who are paid their scheduled salaries for a full year will see a gain in purchasing power. However, the CUPA data were collected in the early fall, and do not reflect furloughs or salary reductions that have reduced the income of many employees in higher education.

For two job categories – senior executives and athletics positions – the medians increased by the same amount for both public and private institutions: 4 percent.

But for six other categories, the median increase for private institutions was greater than that for publics. The gap was largest for associate deans (4.2 percent for privates and 3.5 percent for publics), followed by external affairs (4 percent vs. 3.5 percent). Two job categories had gaps of 0.4 percentage points, favoring the privates: academic affairs and business/administration/technology/human resources (4 percent vs. 3.6 percent for both). Deans and student affairs had gaps of 0.2 percentage points each, with the dean medians going up by 4 percent for privates and 3.8 percent for publics, and the student affairs positions going up by 3.8 percent for privates and 3.6 percent for publics.

The highest paid deans are in medicine (median of $386,561), dentistry ($270,972), law ($266,895), public health ($264,180) and veterinary medicine ($227,826). The lowest paid are in external degree programs ($83,750), instruction ($88,065), special programs ($88,786), divinity/theology ($89,761) and mathematics ($92,423).

By sector, the median increase this year was slightly smaller for doctoral institutions (3.9 percent) than all other sectors (at 4 percent). But last year, while all other sectors saw median salaries for senior administrators grow by 4.0, doctoral institutions saw growth of 4.2 percent.

Even with the smaller median increase this year, doctoral institutions’ salaries are typically larger than those in other sectors. For presidents of a single campus, the median for doctoral institutions is $380,293, compared to $242,050 for master’s institutions, $225,000 for baccalaureate institutions, and $164,947 for community colleges. The median salary for a chief academic affairs officer at a doctoral institution is $262,000, nearly $100,000 more than the master’s institution median, and the gap is even larger for other sectors.