Administrators at colleges and universities nationwide saw increases in their salaries above the 2.5 percent rate of inflation increase during the 2004-05 school year, a recently released survey showed.
The survey, conducted by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, compiled the administrative salaries for 175 positions at 1,387 institutions and found that median salaries increased 0.8 percent more than the 2003-04 academic year.
Public and private universities were included in the study. Nationally, administrators' salaries were boosted from a 2.5 percent increase last year to a 3.3 percent increase this academic year, and MSU's average salaries increased 2.7 percent.
At MSU, the administrative salary adjustments are partially based on merit, said Robert Banks, assistant provost and assistant vice president for academic human resources.
Banks added that some administrators saw a higher increase and other increases were lower.
Economics Professor Charles Ballard said the administrative salary increase of 0.8 percent isn't unreasonably high.
"Lots of wages and salaries have grown over time," Ballard said. "It doesn't strike me as a terribly big number."
Ballard said as prices for consumer goods rise, it's natural for salaries to follow.
"It is quite common for wages on average to grow at something that's not that far from the rate of inflation," he said. "If that weren't true, either you would have fabulous growth in real wages or a shrinkage in real wages."
From 1974 to 2004, the rate of inflation nearly quadrupled, Ballard said, adding that if salaries and wages hadn't grown, no one would be able to purchase anything because prices would be higher than income.
The study found that the median salary of a college or university president is almost $181,000 per year.
MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon makes $340,000, yearly. Her salary is higher than former MSU President M. Peter McPherson's, who left the position in January.
McPherson's $306,600 annual paycheck included deferred compensation - a voluntary plan that allows university employees to set aside some salary before taxes for retirement - and Simon's does not.
MSU's 2.7 percent increase this year was not the highest, nor the lowest, among other institutions in Michigan.
At Hope College, a private liberal arts college in Holland, administrators' salaries increased 0.3 percent more than MSU, said Lori Mulder, director of Human Resources at Hope.
But the University of Michigan-Dearborn posted an increase that was 1.2 percent less than MSU's. The university's overall figure includes faculty and staff salaries as well, said UM-Dearborn spokesman Terry Gallagher.
"Our experience here would be that it isn't outrunning the inflation rate," Gallagher said.
