Paying our presidents: What do trustees value?

Panel data on the salaries and benefits of private university and college p residents are used to infer the factors that trustees of these institutions value. Salary-level equations suggest that presidents' salary and compensa tion are positively associated with enrollment and endowment levels and the test scores of their entering students. Salary and compensation change equ ations provide only weak evidence that presidents' pay increases are relate d to their fundraising success and no evidence of rewards for their institu tions' freshmen test scores increasing.