Paying our Presidents: What do Trustees Value?

We use panel data on the salaries and benefits of private university and college presidents for the 1992-93 to 1996-97 period to try to infer the factors that the trustees of these institutions value. Salary level equations suggest that the salary and compensation of the presidents are positively associated with the enrollment and endowment levels of their institutions and the test scores of their entering students. Salary and compensation change equations estimated for the presidents who remained in their positions for four years provide only weak evidence that presidents' pay increases are related to their fund raising success and no evidence that they get rewarded for their institutions' freshmen test scores increasing.