Report Spotlights Pay At Mass. Colleges

As any parent, or anyone who's ever put themselves through college would know, the cost of earning a degree can seem downright extravagant. In the last 20 years alone, the average price of tuition and fees has surged nearly 130 percent.

Over the same period, colleges and universities across the country have seen the typical pay package given to presidents, fund managers and other top administrators reach new highs.

A new report out Wednesday offers a clearer picture of the landscape in Massachusetts. It examined the 20 wealthiest private colleges in the state and found that compensation packages for "key executives" ranged from $345,000 at Clark University to $6.4 million at Harvard University.

The study, titled "Academic Excess: Executive Compensation at Leading Private Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts," was published by the Center for Social Philanthropy at the Boston-based Tellus Institute. It was funded in part by the SEIU, a union which represents many service workers at a number of Massachusetts colleges.

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