Bob Smith

HARRISBURG — When Pennsylvania's system of 14 state-owned universities was in its infancy, its top executives took home relatively modest paychecks.

For years, the State System of Higher Education took pains to ensure that no university president was paid more than the governor.

Today, the picture is drastically different.

The lowest-paid president, Maravene Loeschke of Mansfield University, earns $189,195 annually — about $14,000 more than Gov. Ed Rendell. At the top of the scale, Indiana (Pa.) University president Tony Atwater receives $253,428 a year.

Slippery Rock University president Bob Smith earns $211,622.

The current salary range reflects raises averaging 6 percent that the system announced in November for most of the presidents. Officials cited the presidents' job performance during the 2007-08 academic year and, in the cases of five presidents, a need to keep their pay competitive with their peers.

Some editorial writers have looked askance at the most recent pay hikes, considering that Rendell's administration is asking the system to tighten spending in response to a looming budget deficit.

But Raymond Cotton, a Washington attorney and expert on university presidents' compensation, said the higher-education sector is confronting a brain drain because so many university executives are at or near retirement age. About half of all college presidents are over 62, he noted.

During the last major wave of retirements in the early 1980s, a healthy pipeline of ambitious vice presidents and provosts helped fill the void, Cotton said. That's no longer the case because many in those lower-level slots also are preparing to retire, he said.

Compounding the problem for public universities is the growing gap between pay. Public university presidents earn about half as much as their private university counterparts, according to a 2004 study by University of Richmond economics professor James Monks.

And their pay falls about 20 percent below the median for presidents of comparable state universities, which makes recruiting more difficult, system spokesman Kenn Marshall said.

"It's very difficult to attract people who are already sitting presidents, making more money than they can make here," he said.