An expensive hire in an austere time

Coming this fall, new students at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign will pay 9.5 percent more in tuition than new students did this school year.

That increase comes on the heels of a hiring freeze and unpaid furlough days for many employees.

It's all part of the economic crisis facing the state's flagship university and Illinois in general. The state is now $375 million behind in its payments to the school.

So it's somewhat surprising and more than a little annoying to hear that the new president of the University of Illinois will make 38 percent more than the person he's replacing. His base salary of $620,000 a year was approved by the U of I board of trustees the same day as the tuition increase.

Is Michael Hogan, who comes to Illinois July 1 after serving as president of the University of Connecticut, worth that much money? Could the school have hired him for less? Those answers are debatable.

The Associated Press reports that his base salary ranks him number two among Big 10 public universities (Northwestern being the only private school). When you put total compensation into the mix, he is in the middle of the pack, with Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee topping out at $1.5 million and University of Wisconsin President Kevin P. Reilly making $442,000.

So, yes, we believe he could have been hired at a lesser rate and still have been paid a generous salary. For his part, Hogan has turned down $100,000 bonuses twice in Connecticut because of budget issues in that state. And he's quoted as saying he wasn't coming to Illinois because of the money but rather because the school is "one of the world's jewels."

So we're not impressed with board members who dismiss complaints about the salary.

"I do not in any way think it's excessive or unjustified," said Trustee Pamela Strobel, according to the Champaign News-Gazette. She chaired the presidential search committee. "It's the world we live in. It's not the world we created."

That world included firing the last president because of an admissions scandal. And that world includes asking everyone connected to the university to sacrifice for the greater good of the school. And that world, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, is seeing many base salaries for presidents stagnating or total compensation even being reduced because of the economy. Some of that reduction has come from voluntary pay freezes and cuts.

If the financial situation is not turned around, we urge Hogan to do the same, just like his Big 10 counterpart Lou Anna K. Simon has done the last two years at Michigan State University.

That would be a welcome public relations move for a university that needs all it can get.