Stanford President’s Pay Ranked 4th-Highest for Private Colleges

Stanford University’s Gerhard Casper was the fourth-highest-paid president in the nation in the 1994-95 school year, according to an annual survey of private colleges and universities released today by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Casper’s total compensation reached $527,533 in that year partly because the university reimbursed him for capital gains taxes he paid after selling a house in Chicago, where he worked previously. Casper’s pay was exceeded only by the presidents of Howard University, Johns Hopkins University and Boston University, according to the survey.

But as in past years, the presidents’ salaries were dwarfed by those of medical school professionals. Eight physicians who are professors or administrators at medical schools earned more than $1 million in salary and benefits in 1994-95. Six others earned more than $800,000.

The Chronicle collected data from federal tax returns filed by 479 of the nation’s biggest and best-known colleges and universities. The returns do not provide a complete picture of compensation at the private institutions, but they are the best source available.

According to the survey, the average sum paid in compensation and benefits to presidents at research universities was $322,936; doctoral institutions, $177,991; master’s institutions, $134,707, and baccalaureate colleges, $164,114.

Nine presidents earned more than $400,000 in salary and benefits in 1994-95, the survey found. Twenty-five more earned in excess of $300,000. And 42 presidents received no compensation or donated it to their colleges or religious orders.

The president of the nine-campus University of California, Richard C. Atkinson, makes $253,300 a year.

According to the survey, the former president of Howard University, Franklyn G. Jenifer, made more than $800,000 in 1994-95, largely because of a severance payment of nearly $677,000. Johns Hopkins’ departing president, William C. Richardson, made $631,000.

Below is the compensation and benefits paid to a sampling of presidents of California institutions in 1994-95:

Biola University, $158,741; Caltech, $371,604; Claremont Graduate School, $183,228; Claremont McKenna College, $205,781; Mills College, $180,000; Occidental College, $242,224; Pitzer College, $201,406; Pomona College, $222,437; Scripps College, $173,241; USC, $329,584; University of Redlands, $196,500; Whittier College, $248,531.