Financial Compensation or Educational Imperative: Non profits and Educational Institutions

Colleges pay presidents millions while raising tuition

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By Blake Ellis @CNNMoney December 20, 2011: 5:22 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Some private colleges are paying their top executives millions of dollars, at the same time they're hiking tuition prices for students.

Vanderbilt University paid its chancellor, Nicholas Zeppos, $1.9 million in 2009, according to the school's
most recent tax filings -- enough for up to 43 students to attend Vanderbilt at current prices. His total pay includes a base salary of $673,002, as well as bonus and other compensation.

That same year, Vanderbilt's tuition jumped 4.3%. Since then, the college has hiked tuition more than 3% annually, and now totals $41,332, according to the university.

His overall pay was actually 21.5% lower than it was the previous year, according to the school. Even so, Zeppos' 2009 base was almost four times the average professor's salary of $179,600, the college confirmed.
Zeppos "deserves the compensation he receives," said Mark Dalton, chairman of the college's Board of Trust, in a statement.

"We know that Nick is a highly attractive candidate for other top universities seeking new, vibrant leadership," Dalton said. "We cannot allow another university to recruit him away from Vanderbilt on the basis of compensation or other factors."

5 biggest state tuition hikes

Quinnipiac University, located in Hamden, Conn., is in the same boat. Its president, John Lahey, made $1.2 million in 2009, including base pay of $760,706, according to tax documents. Meanwhile, the college raised tuition and fees nearly 5% that year, and more than 5% each year after. Students now pay $36,130 a year to attend.

Emory University, in Atlanta, and Houston-based Rice University also paid their presidents more than $1 million in 2009 while raising tuition nearly 5%. Both schools have also hiked tuition during the past two years.
As student loan debt continues to grow and students storm campuses across the country to protest the surging cost of tuition, college presidents' big paychecks are adding fuel to the fire, said Sara Hebel, a senior editor at the Chronicle of Higher Education, which recently published its annual survey of CEO compensation among private colleges.

College graduation rates: Income really matters

"At a time when the national conversation is focused on widening income gaps between the wealthiest individuals and everyone else, it is not a surprise that college presidents who earn some of the highest salaries have been targeted by students who face rising tuition," said Hebel.

Of the 519 private colleges with budgets over $50 million that the Chronicle surveyed, 36 presidents earned more than $1 million in 2009. That's up slightly from the 33 presidents who topped $1 million in earnings during the previous year. The Chronicle report, which is based on the most recent tax documents available, looks at compensation including base salary, bonuses and the value of benefits.

Some of the presidents got million-dollar pay because they retired from their schools that year -- and their packages were bulked up with deferred compensation, retirement benefits, sabbatical leave compensation and other one-time payments.

The median total compensation of the 519 presidents at colleges surveyed by the Chronicle was $385,909. That's a 2.2% increase from 2008. The median base salary was $294,489, a 2.8% bump up from the prior year.

Tuition has been increasing at an even faster rate. Private colleges raised tuition by an average of 4.3% for the 2009 school year, according to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. And the hikes have been continuing. Private colleges increased tuition and fees by 4.5% for 2010, and 4.6% for the current school year.

While stated tuition and fees are higher, the actual amount students are paying at some colleges may be decreasing. Some schools are ramping up financial aid at the same time, making the "sticker price" misleading.
For example, while the University of Pennsylvania's published tuition and fees have surged 37% over the past seven years, the average net cost (including financial aid) for students aided by the college has actually decreased about 4%. Only the wealthiest families (those earning annual income of more than $200,000) pay the full sticker price, the university said.

How much will that college really cost?

That said, the president of University of Pennsylvania, Amy Gutmann, still earned a handsome base salary of nearly $900,000 in 2009, the main chunk of her $1.3 million in total compensation, according to the university's tax filings.

And Hebel said that while presidential salaries hold symbolic importance, especially at a time when college is becoming increasingly unaffordable for the average family, the typical president's compensation package actually makes up only 0.4% of a college's budget.

Of course, there are bigger gaps at some schools. While inflated thanks to a one-time retirement payment in 2009, the $1.8 million in compensation given to the president of Beckley, West Virginia-based Mountain State University accounted for 3.5% of the school's entire budget, according to Chronicle data.

National Medical Association (NMA)

National Medical Association
Formation	1895
Headquarters	Silver Spring, Maryland
Location	United States
Membership	African American Physicians
Official languages	English
President	Leonard Weather, Jr.
Website	http://www.nmanet.org/

The National Medical Association (NMA) is the largest and oldest national organization representing African American physicians and their patients in the United States. The NMA is a 501 (c) (3) national professional and scientific organization representing the interests of more than 30,000 African American physicians and the patients they serve, with nearly 112 affiliated societies throughout the nation and U.S. territories. The National Medical Association has been firmly established in a leadership role in medicine. The NMA is committed to improving the quality of health among minorities and disadvantaged people through its membership, professional development, community health education, advocacy, research and partnerships with federal and private agencies. Throughout its history the National Medical Association has focused primarily on health issues related to African Americans and medically underserved populations; however, its principles, goals, initiatives and philosophy encompass all ethnic groups.

“Conceived in no spirit of racial exclusiveness, fostering no ethnic antagonism, but born of the exigencies of the American environment, the National Medical Association has for its object the banding together for mutual cooperation and helpfulness, the men and women of African descent who are legally and honorably engaged in the practice of the cognate professions of medicine, surgery, pharmacy and dentistry.”—C.V. Roman, M.D. NMA Founding Member and First Editor of the JNMA 1908^[1]

Contents 1 Mission 2 Founding 3 History, 1900-1950 4 NMA Convention and Scientific Assembly 5 Program Awareness 6 References 7 External links

In the late 1950s, the NMA took a more active interest in civil rights under the leadership of its president, T. R. M. Howard, a surgeon from Mississippi. In the months after his election as president, Howard had played a key role in the search for evidence and witnesses in the Emmett Till murder case and led the largest civil rights organization in the state, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership. In 1957, under his leadership, the NMA organized the Imhotep National Conference on Hospital Integration which publicized and challenged continuing hospital segregation in both the North and South.^[2]

Mission

To advance the art and science of medicine for people of African descent through education, advocacy, and health policy to promote health and wellness, eliminate health disparities, and sustain physician viability.^[3]
The NMA promotes the collective interests of physicians and patients of African descent and tries to carry out this mission by serving as the collective voice of physicians of African descent and a leading force for parity in medicine, elimination of health disparities, and promotion of optimal health.^[4]

Founding

Since its founding, NMA has served as the conscience of the medical profession. The National Medical Association took the lead in the creation of the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs years ago. Recently, the NMA was at the forefront of the struggle to avert a national health calamity in the reformation of these programs.^[5]

History, 1900-1950

The NMA, dedicated to promoting the interests of those of "African Descent," contributed to the national health insurance dialogue from 1900-1950. Despite its rather marginal size, starting in the mid-1910s, the NMA advocated compulsory health insurance. Primarily, the association sought any means that provided medical care for African Americans. As an association, however, it also sought to promote the interests of the African American physician him/herself. Indeed, given the prominent racist practices of the Jim Crow South as well as segregated medical facilities across the U.S., it was extremely difficult for African American physicians to find gainful employment and practice medicine.

From the mid 1910s to the late 1940s, the American Medical Association (AMA) acted as the mainstream medical profession's voice. Yet numerous African American doctors were unable to join the AMA due to the lack of county medical societies and/or because of local bigoted practices, thereby limiting the number of African American AMA members. To exacerbate matters further, the NMA's leadership continued to support compulsory health insurance while AMA members largely distanced itself from such a scheme due to the (a) red scare, (b) belief in U.S. health superiority to other nations with national health insurance schemes and (c) the argument that a national health insurance would potentially ruin the "sacred" practitioner-patient relationship. Struggling between providing medical care for African Americans as well as maintaining the voice of African American physicians, the NMA was internally divided on these issues from the late 1930s-early 1950s.

During this time period, the NMA leadership repeatedly stated their support for a national health insurance scheme through the Journal of the National Medical Association as well as newspapers like the Chicago Defender. At the same time, rank-and-file members, desirous to practice medicine, supported the AMA's proposals. Indeed, during the height of the health insurance debates from 1946-50, the AMA often sent guest speakers to the NMA's conferences. Such AMA officials promised the NMA membership in their ranks as well as the right to practice medicine. Yet the NMA's leadership largely resisted the AMA's efforts. NMA presidents like Drs. E. L. Robinson, C. Austin Whitter and J. G. Gathings opposed the AMA's proposals on the grounds that the AMA had previously excluded African American patients from their care as well as African American physicians from their ranks. Furthermore, the AMA's support of Abraham Flexner's Report of 1910 witnessed the closure of numerous African American and women hospitals across the country. How could, the NMA leadership argued, African American doctors support the AMA when the AMA was in fact the origin of some of African American's most severe issues (indeed, NMA member Dr. Cobb compared the AMA's tactics to the KKK during 1946-50).

By the early 1950s, the NMA still did not possess a consensual platform concerning health insurance. Internally torn about the best methods to promote their own professional ambitions as well as the interests of African American patients, the health insurance topic remained a divisive one. Still, members of the NMA offered resistance to the AMA's promotion of voluntary health insurance when few medical practitioners dared to.

NMA Convention and Scientific Assembly

Nearly every year since its founding in 1895, the NMA has held the Annual Convention & Scientific Assembly, which is regarded as the nation’s foremost forum on medical science and African American health. The NMA is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to sponsor continuing medical education.

Through the presentation of CME programs at the national and regional conventions as well as at state and local society meetings, NMA members are able to meet Category 1 requirements for the Physician’s Achievement Award of the NMA and the Physician’s Recognition Award of the American Medical Association (AMA). The NMA offers CME programs in 23 specialties — from Aerospace Medicine to Urology. Up to forty-five (45) of the 50 Category 1 credits required for licensure in 23 states can be earned at the NMA Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly alone.^[6]

Program Awareness

The NMA has conducted national consumer awareness programs in cancer, women’s health, radon, secondhand smoke, smoking cessation and immunizations. Further, the work of the NMA and its members has received national exposure on NBC, ABC, FOX and CNN television stations, as well as numerous radio and major print media each year.^[7]

References

1. ^ Overview National Medical Association retrieved 2010-07-21
2. ^ David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 132-35, 157-58.
3. ^ Introduction National Medical Association retrieved 2010-07-21
4. ^ Introduction National Medical Association retrieved 2010-07-21
5. ^ History National Medical Association retrieved 2010-07-21
6. ^ Benefits of Membership at the NMA National Medical Association retrieved 2010-07-21
7. ^ Benefits of Membership at the NMA National Medical Association retrieved 2010-07-21

External links

• Official website