By Matt Sharp
Quinnipiac President John L. Lahey earned just short of $3.8 million in 2012, putting him second on a list of the highest paid private university presidents, according to data from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Since 2011, Lahey’s pay has nearly tripled to a total of $3,759,076, putting him second only to President Shirley Ann Jackson of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who received an income of more than $7 million.
Lahey’s compensation consisted mostly of around $2.8 million from his retirement plan, which he had to report as “other pay.” The rest of his reported salary came from deferred compensation and nontaxable benefits, along with his $980,000 base pay. Upon retiring, Lahey will receive installments of his retirement fund for at least 17 years.
The Chronicle of higher Education also compared Lahey’s salary to that of the president of a similarly ranked university, Monmouth University, who reportedly earned $678,163 in the same year, more than $3 million less. Within the university, Lahey made more than $3 million more than the next highest paid administrator, Patrick Healy, who is the senior vice president for finance, who was paid $532,500.
According to the report Lahey’s pay was 7.8 times the average salary of a Quinnipiac professor, and it would take just short of 100 students paying the full sticker price to match his salary.
