[jd007]

Isn't this just that colleges are paying the market rate for good executives because they want to get talented and experienced people to run them well? Colleges are very complex and are definitely no easier to run than similarly sized companies.

[Glyptodon]

I still suspect they could get 90% of the performance at half the price by recruiting differently.

And of course, if the return on that extra 10% dwarfs half the salary, of course it makes sense to pay for the extra 10%, too, I suppose.