As U of I Faces Financial Hardships, New President Rolls In Green

By Marcus Gilmer in News on May 13, 2010 5:40PM

The University of Illinois formally introduced their new president, Michael Hogan (most recently of the University of Connecticut), yesterday and he addressed the challenges that the school faces. Commenting on the hundreds of millions of dollars that the school is owed by the state, Hogan said, "We are going to be looking very clearly at how we can focus our resources to make sure the best parts of the university remain intact and continue to improve." Some measures already being taken include a 9.5 percent tuition hike and unpaid furlough days for faculty and administrators.

Meanwhile, Hogan's salary is reported to be a mind-blowing $620,000 per year for five years, plus a potential $225,000 in retention pay if he stays past five years. Ever the altruist, Hogan claimed he's not in it for the money: "If I wanted to run a $5 billion business and make a lot of money, I would be somewhere else." How benevolent. That's a 27 percent increase over the salary earned by Hogan's predecessor Joseph White, who resigned in part due to the Clout College scandal. So while faculty members take unpaid furlough days and incoming students and their families prepare to shell out even more money to attend the college - because, you know, the recent economic crisis hasn't affected them at all - Hogan will be able to stockpile enough quarters to pull a Scrooge McDuck all under the guise of "I'm in it for the kids, not the money."

As the state continues to be mired in a budget mess of epic proportions and falls further behind on payments, Hogan will have a base salary higher than the President of the United States. Sadly, Hogan's salary isn't unusual; the median pay for public school execs in 2008-2009 was $436,111. School board chairman Christopher Kennedy said of Hogan, "He is a rare find, a top-flight leader capable of moving the university forward." While that may be true, we're already disappointed to see Hogan willingly rake in such a steep salary while the school he's tasked to lead continues to struggle, drowning in debt. If Hogan wanted to make a truly bold statement about the change in leadership, he would take a pay cut or, at the very least, accept the position at the same salary that White made. If the school is asking its own students and faculty to make sacrifices for the betterment of the school's financial situation, the President of the school should be held to the same standard. It won't save the university, but it's still the right statement to make.

Update: As a reader points out below, Hogan did take a pay cut by accepting the U of I job, as he would have earned a salary of $745,000 at the University of Connecticut.