See these articles:
10 of the highest paid basketball coaches
CSU raises pay for presidents, plans to cut enrollment
Universities will state that they need to pay such huge salaries to bring in talent. Personally, I don’t care what the private colleges pay their presidents and coaches, but I do when it is a government operated school.
College presidents’ salaries go up and enrollment gets cut. I thought the mission was supposed to educate?
The top pay of any government bureaucrat (or in this case, coach or president) should not to be more than the top pay of that government’s CEO (in California’s case, the Governor).
If a university wants to pay a salary above what the governor makes, then let the university find outside money. If a coach is that good, base incentives on the amount that boosters, tickets and TV bring in.
Make the schools become fiscally responsible in hiring their coaches and presidents and base their base salary on a set level, but reward based upon incentives.
If you don’t like this method of controlling government salaries for university presidents and coaches, I’d like to read your plan.
Comments 3
Roger, I can’t speak to the specifics of everyone of these coaches but in the case of Tedford and Montgomery (Cal) and Howland (UCLA) their contracts specifically note that the Athletic Department pays for their salary up to full Prof. on Salary Scale (about 250K) and then everything else has to come from Boosters and AD endowment or shoe company tie ins.
Erik, no need to be so formal. You can call me “Poway” or “Pow”. Yes, I am aware of these rare situations, but as stated, rare. Government run schools really need to be accountable for the money paid out. Is it right if education is the #1 objective, if we have to cut classes to pay for the salaries of the coaches and bureaucrats? Some might use the rational that if you spend good money for talent, you will end up making money. In some cases, yes, but then you end up in a bidding war and that is part of the problem with government. Everyone wants the best, and since it’s the taxpayers that are paying for it, why not? We have to draw the line somewhere and stop these outrageous deals, and this is a start. Pay a low base salary and have incentives in the contract.
But Poway – the point is with Tedford, MM, and Howland they are NOT cutting classes to pay for those guys since their salaries above 200K are paid for revenues that the GF would not accrue.
I actually don’t KNOW that they are the rare exception – just have no information one way or the other as to other schools….though it wouldn’t surprise me in the least that the other publics on your list have similar arrangements.