Student Loan Blog : American University

Colleges and Universities to Subsidize Unpaid Internships

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:08:00 GMT

Some small, private schools are beginning to offer internship grants to students who would otherwise have been unable to accept an unpaid or low-paying intern position, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Subsidizing the Internship,” July 18, 2008).

“That’s one of the more important aspects of career assistance that a university can provide a student,” said Mark Oldman, co-founder of Vault, a career-information company. Amid so many unpaid and low- paying internships, he told the Chronicle, “the university can come to the rescue financially.”

Once considered an added bonus to a college degree, internships have now become “a prime form of professional capital” for college students. But being that most internships offer little to no financial compensation, lower-income students are often placed at a disadvantage in the competitive internship field.

Internship-grant programs now being offered by schools across the country will subsidize unpaid or low-paying internships and allow more financially needy students to take advantage of these experience-building opportunities:

Connecticut College awarded up to $3,000 grants to two- thirds, or 285, college seniors
Austin College in Texas gave 54 students $2,300 each
Whitman College in Washington paid 26 students $2,100
Smith College in Massachusetts has pledged financial support for all internship-seeking students, regardless of their financial need

American University in Washington, D.C., while unable to offer direct financial assistance for internships, provides room and board for Native American students who secure internships at federal agencies or private corporations.

Butler University in Indianapolis, Ind., offers on-campus housing at a subsidized rate for summer interns through the Brain Gain program, as well as career counseling for those who participate in the program.

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College Presidents’ Salaries Not-So-Slowly Sliding Up the Pay Scale

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 04:09:00 GMT

It costs a lot of money to go to college. It costs even more money to run a college. And it’s costing increasingly more money to pay college and university presidents’ salaries and compensation packages, with many reaching the million-dollar mark.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s most recent survey of executive compensation, salaries for presidents of private institutions has increased 200 percent over the last five years, with 81 presidents making more than $500,000 a year. Eight out of the 182 public institutions surveyed now pay salaries of at least $700,000, a jump from the two who reached that benchmark last year (“Presidential Pay is Increasing Fastest at the Largest Institutions,” Nov. 16, 2007).

In some ways, the life of a growing number of college presidents can be compared to that of a U.S. senator. In addition to their high salaries, these presidents might receive free housing, cars, travel, meals and “gifts” from friends of the institutions.

But with yearly college tuition hikes outstripping both the rate of inflation and increases in financial aid, one of the questions becomes whether rising presidents’ salaries are contributing to rising tuition costs (see our Nov. 4 blog, “Student Loan Debt Is on the Rise”).

A New York Times article by Jonathan D. Glater reports that families and lawmakers are concerned about these unfettered increases, questioning college and university presidents making millions even as students graduate with soaring levels of student loan debt (“Increased Compensation Puts More College Presidents in the Million-Dollar Club,” Nov. 12, 2007).

“The public has lost confidence in the altruistic mission of higher education,” says Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, in Glater’s article. “They see higher education as just another institution that’s in it for its own bottom line.”

Salaries on the Rise at Both Private and Public Schools

At private institutions, 81 college presidents earned $500,000 or more in the 2006 fiscal year, an increase of 15.7 percent from the previous year.

NOTE: Because some institutions changed Carnegie classifications, the number of institutions from which these data were collected changed from 670 last year to 654 this year. The statistics do not include special-focus institutions or the compensation of presidents who worked only part of the year.

Data and text courtesy of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

At public universities, the median total annual compensation in 2006–07 for the sample of 182 leaders was $397,349. The following chart shows how many presidents were in each of the $100,000 pay classifications.

Data and text courtesy of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Schools and Presidents Defend Their Pay

Officials at schools with some of the highest paid presidents argue that “running a large university is increasingly similar to running a corporation,” writes Glater. In fact, the Chronicle points out, more college presidents are coming from corporate environments.

School officials, Glater explains, maintain that generous salaries are necessary both to draw presidents that can operate under the corporate mindset needed “to help build institutional wealth and prestige” and to keep them from defecting to a higher bidding school once they’ve been hired—one-third of public college presidents have no formal written employment contract, according to the Chronicle.

For fear of being ousted as the next Benjamin Lander—the former president of American University who was fired for allegedly requesting more than half a million dollars business compensation for personal expenses—some presidents themselves want to make it clear that not all college heads abuse their compensation packages and expense reimbursements. For some presidents, their greatest yearly expense comes in the form of donations given back to their schools.

In another Chronicle article, reporter Piper Fogg interviewed five college and university presidents about how they spend their money. Although all of them admitted to some personal splurging, they also pointed out the thousands of dollars they give back to the schools they work for (“With All Those Perks, How Do College Presidents Spend Their Money?,” Nov. 16, 2007).

David Hodge, president of Miami University (Ohio), earns $399,005 per year, but has donated more than $100,000 in the last year to create need-based scholarships for his students.

Lois B. DeFleur, president of the State University of New York at Binghamton, might own a Piper Comanche 260C single-engine airplane that she bought over 30 years ago, but the school only reimburses her for mileage at the automobile mileage rate—she pays for the gas, $5 a gallon, out of her own pocket. And out of her $344,500 pay package, DeFleur has donated about $100,000 over the last five years to her school, as well as the $25,000 she received for winning the McGraw Prize in Education.

If college presidents are increasingly expected to operate as CEOs, Hodge and DeFleur certainly differ from typical corporate executives in what they voluntarily give back to their employers out of their own salaries. And while college presidents’ pay is rising rapidly, the Chronicle notes that compared with the salaries of corporate CEOs, college executive salaries still lag far behind.

As long as colleges and universities stay on their current path toward functioning as corporations, presidents’ salaries will most likely continue to climb—it will be for the schools, the students, and the public at large to see if they get the corporate-level college management that corresponds to the corporate-level pay.

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College Students Sprawling Out on Bigger Beds

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:11:00 GMT

Super-sizing isn’t just for combo meals anymore.

They’ve grown up with SUVs, Hummers, giant plasma TVs and, evidently, bigger beds—Gen Y’s all grown up and in college, and they like their non-digital amenities big.

This fall, colleges and universities across the country are attempting to answer the demands (and generally taller and larger bodies) of the millennial generation by upgrading their bed sizes on campus. Those Gen Y kids used to the comforts of double or queen-sized beds at home haven’t been too thrilled with the skinny singles that have been the dorm standard for decades.

Double beds, writes Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post, are part of schools’ array of tactics aimed at competing with off-campus housing to keep student on campus. Some colleges are even implementing luxuries like maid service, in-room microwaves, and larger, renovated dorm rooms that can better accommodate the wider beds (“Students Can Rest Easy Now,” Sep. 18, 2007).

Size Does Matter

“The trend seems to be that there is more competition among different schools for the student body—I guess literally—with larger beds,” says Ryan Trainer, executive vice president of the nonprofit International Sleep Products Association.

Strauss writes about Elissa Robinson, now a senior at American University, who, “[a]ccustomed to sleeping on a queen-size, 60-by-80-inch water bed at home, … got a rude awakening when she headed off to college: a twin-size bed, somewhere around 38-by-75 inches, with a mattress that had seen better days.”

After three years of dealing with the twin bed, Robinson received a double bed from AU for her senior year. “[T]his is much, much better,” Robinson says. “It’s where I sleep, do my homework and everything else. It’s just more of an adult thing to have a bigger bed.”

Bigger is Better

College campuses have traditionally plagued their dorm denizens with the modest twin mattress that many students these days haven’t seen since elementary school, if at all.

“Many of them are not coming from single beds,” says Rick Treter, director of residence life at AU. “Many come from doubles and queens, so they have to readjust to living on the single bed.”

AU made its move to double beds, Strauss reports, after receiving complaints from students that the twin beds were “too small and too childish.”

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has also started providing double beds for its on-campus students in response to feedback from focus groups and student requests for larger beds.

UNCG students characterized twin beds as “too small and uncomfortable,” says Mary L. Hummel, the director of housing and residence life. The new doubles “accommodate students more comfortably, especially taller students, and better meet student needs.”

Though college administrators may not know for a few semesters if their efforts to entice students back to on-campus housing will prove successful, initial feedback on the bigger beds has been nothing but positive.

“It’s amazing,” says AU sophomore Matt Valdivia. “Now I can be alive and fit on the bed in every direction.”

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