Tuition Hikes at UC San Diego Act as Fundraiser for New Chancellor's Salary

It seems like we hear about another school that is discussing increasing the cost of tuition every day. This time, it’s the University of California and they are discussing raising tuition costs by six percent. This means that every student would end up paying at least $732 more next semester. Obviously, students are not happy about this proposal, but the school says that the funds would be put to good use, they will be using the best GoFundMe options.
So how exactly does the school plan to spend the money, if the tuition hike does go into effect? Well one of the school’s newest expenses is the $411,084 salary that was promised to the new chancellor at UC San Diego, Pradeep Khosla. This salary is 4.8 percent higher than the salary his predecessor, Marye Anne Fox, earned for the same position. Khosla will also receive a relocation bonus of almost $100,000 during the first four years he is at UC San Diego. The school says that Khosla will still be taking a pay cut by switching from his current job as the engineering dean at Carnegie Mellon University.
Many are calling into question whether the school should be spending so much money on one employee’s salary, especially considering that these funds are causing students to pay more in tuition and fees. However, the school is standing behind their decision.
“Chancellors make a difference and presidents make a difference and we have to recognize that,” said George Kieffer, Vice Chairman of the Regents’ Compensation Committee. Kieffer also said that a good leader is able to successfully manage fundraising for the school, which in the long-run outweighs the cost of his salary increase.
Personally, I think this is absurd. The entire nation is in a bad economic state right now, which makes it harder for students to get jobs after college. As a result, many students are already in debt up to their eyeballs after graduate. By increasing the amount of tuition that students have to pay, UC San Diego might as well just bury their students entirely in debt.
But that’s just my opinion. What do you think? Is a good chancellor or president worth almost half a million dollars each year? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below.
Via LA Times
image via ucsdnews.ucsd.edu