McDaniel College's Top Job Earned Half a Million a Year

McDaniel College’s former president is No. 154 from the top on the list of the salaries of the 519 presidents at the nation’s private colleges, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Joan Develin Coley, who retired in 2010, made a total of $513,820 in annual salary and benefits, according to the publication’s annual survey.  Her base salary was $304,768. The figures are from the most recent federal tax report data available and are for private colleges with total budgets of at least $50 million.

Constantine Papadakis, the president of Drexel University who died in 2009, was the highest paid, at $4.9 million, but much of that was said to be from life insurance and previously accrued compensation. Papadakis earned a base salary of $196,000.

Still, the ranks of those making at least $1 million per year rose from 33 to 36 and many private college presidents saw at least modest raises during a time of national economic struggle.

"This is not a trend that is helping to build public confidence in higher education," Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, told the Huffington Post.  "It helps explain why a majority of Americans think that higher education is more interested in its own bottom line than in the educational experience of students.”

There is some sign that compensation for college presidents is leveling off and such positions often don’t pay as much as athletic coaches or CEOs – a fact often noted by the college presidents, themselves.

Other colleges with similarly compensated presidents included Marist College in New York, Jacksonville University in Florida, Pepperdine University in California and St. John’s, also in Maryland.

The presidents of Johns Hopkins and Stevenson universities in Maryland were in the top 20 of highly paid university presidents.

In 2010, Roger Neal Casey became the ninth president of McDaniel College.