| 摘要 | The controversy surrounding excessive salaries and bonuses paid to top executives at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency has shocked the sensibilities of both politicians and taxpayers over the past couple of weeks, and for good reason. Recently released income data from the Census Bureau found that the median household income in the Keystone State is $44,537, which pales in comparison to the $469,975 paid out to PHEAA CEO Richard Willey, as well as similarly generous compensation given to Mr. Willey’s lieutenants.
The defense offered by state Sen. Sean Logan–that the bonuses and pay were necessary to remain competitive with the private sector–betrays the entire idea of public service. Most people working in state government–from Gov. Ed Rendell on down–could hypothetically make more money privately. You don’t work for a nonprofit state-funded agency to get rich; you accept a leaner salary in the name of serving the public good.
This isn’t the first time that PHEAA staff members’ commitment to the public good has been questioned. These are the same public employees who spent more than $400,000 in legal fees to help keep secret financial information about their lavish retreats and conferences.
But while PHEAA’s arrogance is shocking, its attitude is common in the world of higher education. Much like PHEAA executives, university presidents have seen their salaries grow enormously over the past 30 years. They also have increased university bureaucracies, adding countless job titles such as vice presidents, associate chancellors and assistant provosts–all jobs that regularly pay six-figure salaries.
University administrations are not alone in their largesse. Some senior faculty at research universities also have watched their salaries go through the roof, while their teaching loads have been reduced. Supposedly “all-star” faculty members now earn top-dollar even though they often do little teaching and devote themselves instead to nebulous “research.”
In the meantime, college tuition has skyrocketed. By our calculations, the rise in tuition, adjusting for inflation, has grown by more than 100 percent over the past 25 years at private schools and nearly 83 percent at public schools. Students have been compelled to take out more loans, with the average student now leaving school with debts close to $20,000. A small but significant portion of graduates end up borrowing twice as much. Taxpayers also have been hit hard by these rising costs, as colleges and universities have demanded more state appropriations.
What’s missing at both PHEAA and within the higher-education community at large is accountability. Unfortunately, most university trustees are highly deferential to administrations and avoid possibly uncomfortable inquiries about how money is being spent. The same goes for the PHEAA board, which was silent about the excessive salaries and bonuses being paid to executives until they became an issue in the media. In fact, as the media have reported, this was not the first time that PHEAA executives were rewarded with big bonuses. In 2005, more than $1 million was doled out; last year the figure topped $800,000.
Universities and higher-education agencies largely resist any movement to increase accountability. When you try to talk to a university about its “bottom line,” you usually are shunned for using business language that is considered “inappropriate” for the Ivory Tower.
In reality, colleges and universities could use a heavy dose of the same economic principles that nearly everybody else in the work force faces on a daily basis. Here are just a few examples:
Administration salaries and bonuses should be tied to a college’s ability to rein in tuition and other costs for students and taxpayers, much like many corporations base executive compensation on stock performance.
Universities should be forced to measure the increases in student knowledge, critical learning skills and understanding of civic institutions that they provide, and then pay key administrators according to the amount of “value added” they deliver.
At a minimum, precise goals should be set for key administrators (such as a 10 percent increase in the number of applications or a 3 percent reduction in dropouts), with salaries and bonuses related to their success in meeting those goals.
Bringing accountability to higher education is a tall order and will not happen overnight. But the state of Pennsylvania has a golden opportunity to use the PHEAA excesses to jump start a higher education accountability movement in the commonwealth. Oregon has just created a Postsecondary Quality Education Commission to look at university practices. This followed the creation of the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education at the federal level.
It’s time that we start asking tough questions about how higher education operates in this state, instead of just blindly demanding that students and taxpayers fork over more of their hard-earned dollars for college tuition and state appropriations.
Richard Vedder is a visiting scholar at AEI. Bryan O’Keefe is the associate director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. |
