Yes, as John notes, the skyrocketing compensation of academic presidents is plenty suspect. In an era of ever more onerous tuition raises and student college debt, the fact that 112 of them earn $500,000 or more and 7 rake in more than $1 million deserves scrutiny.

The main question to ask, however, is just what these lavishly compensated folks are contributing to actual student learning – a matter they appear to wish to avoid. That is, they are not known for leading the charge toward instituting the standards and evaluation tools that would allow students’ academic progress – and thus institutions’ performance – to be measured and reported to the generous public.

In fact, many institutional trustees evaluate do not rigorously, nor with sufficient openness, evaluate the performance of college presidents themselves, and in particular with respect to the benchmark that should count most: how they advance student learning. James A. Boyle, president of College Parents of America, is thus on the mark in lamenting that these fat pay packages are “being used as a lure to attract presidents to jobs as opposed to an incentive for them to perform well once in their position.”

Moreover, the notion that such compensation is needed because good presidents are in short supply, as put forth regularly by trustees and presidential search firms, is misleading. Search firm executive Jon McRae, for instance, claims “there just aren’t enough people who can do what a college president needs to do these days.” It would seem, rather, that the pool of presidential candidates is being artificially kept small in order to keep presidential compensation high (and ever escalating). There are many more persons academically and managerially able to lead campuses, but they are not allowed into the pool.

Let’s stay on top of this issue. There’s more to it than meets the eye.