Thirty presidents received more than $1 million in pay and benefits in 2008, according to an analysis of federal tax forms by The Chronicle of Higher Education. More than 1 in 5 chief executives at the 448 institutions surveyed topped $600,000.

Most of the pay packages were negotiated before the full force of the recession. But even if the numbers dip slightly in next year’s survey, executive pay is expected to keep climbing over the long term as colleges compete for top talent. And schools are rewarding executives while raising tuition, exposing themselves to criticism.

At large research universities, the median pay was $760,774; it was $387,923 at liberal arts colleges and $352,257 at undergraduate and graduate colleges and universities.

The highest paid executive in the Chronicle survey was Bernard Lander, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and sociologist who founded Touro College in New York in 1970. He died in February at 94.

Lander received a compensation package of nearly $4.8 million. In a statement, the college said $4.2 million of that was retroactive pay and benefits awarded after an outside consultant determined Lander had been “severely underpaid.”

Several deals reported the Chronicle survey, which covers the most recent available data, included deferred compensation or other unusual circumstances. Comparisons to past years aren’t possible because of changes in how data is reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Colleges were asked to report salaries by calendar year instead of fiscal year as in the past, so most dollar amounts overlap with what was reported the previous year.

Another change: Perks including first-class air travel, country club dues and housing are now included in reported pay.

In 2007-2008, 23 presidents received more than $1 million. As recently as 2004, no college president had broken the seven-figure threshold.

While some presidents on the latest list lead ultra-selective schools such as Columbia, Yale and Penn, executives from schools such as the University of Tulsa and Chapman University in Orange, Calif., are on it, too.

Not all the most elite schools are represented, either. The presidents of Harvard, Princeton and Johns Hopkins all were paid in the $800,000s.

“Value is in the eyes of the beholder,” said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of the Chronicle. “Some boards think these presidents, even at small institutions, are worth it. On the flip side, the prestige of serving at other institutions is enough of a paycheck for some.”

Still, numbers in the tax forms don’t always tell the whole story.

Chapman University President James Doti’s $1.25 million compensation includes two “golden handcuff” deferred compensation deals worth almost $665,000, spokeswoman Mary Platt said. She said the board did not want to lose Doti, who since taking the job in 1991 has raised the school’s profile and overseen expansive building projects.

He and other college presidents have donated a portion of the earnings back to the college. Doti gave a $1 million gift for an endowed chair in economics.

David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said in a statement that salaries reflect supply and demand, and that presidents’ jobs have become more demanding. Presidential salaries make up a very small percentage of campus budgets and have virtually no impact on tuition increases, Warren said.

Still, public confidence in higher education erodes when tuition and presidential pay are both rising, said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

“People see higher education as another institution that takes care of the people at the top first,” he said.

According to the College Board, average tuition and fees at private colleges and universities have risen almost 35% in the past decade, to $27,290. Many students, though, pay much less because of grants and tax benefits. The average net price at private schools was $11,320 this fall, less than what students paid on average a decade ago.

Public college presidents generally earn less than their private counterparts. Only one public university president topped $1 million in 2008-09 —Ohio State University president Gordon Gee brought in $1.5 million.

Then there are for-profit colleges, which are under fire for their heavy reliance on federal student aid money and high student loan default rates. Strayer Education Inc. paid chairman and CEO Robert Silberman $41.9 million last year, according to a Bloomberg report last week.

Survey: More college presidents make millions

At public four-year schools, many of them ravaged by state budget cuts, average in-state tuition and fees this fall rose 7.9%, or $555 a year, to $7,605, according to the College Board‘s “Trends in College Pricing.” The average sticker price at private nonprofit colleges increased 4.5%, or $1,164, to $27,293.

Massive government subsidies and aid from schools helped keep in check the final price many students paid. But experts caution that federal aid can only do so much and even higher tuition is likely unless state appropriations rebound or colleges drastically cut costs.

“Just when Americans need college the most, many are finding it increasingly difficult to afford,” said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education.

When adjusted for inflation, the tuition increases this fall amount to 6.6% at public four-year colleges and 3.2% at private ones, according to the College Board.

Many students are finding relief in expanded federal aid, including tax credits, veterans’ benefits and a record expansion of the Pell Grant program for low-income students. In 2009-10, 7.7 million students received $28.2 billion in Pell Grants — an increase of almost $10 billion from the year before, according to a companion College Board report, “Trends in Student Aid.”

Even so, the maximum Pell grant covers just 34% of the average cost of attending a public four-year college, down from 45% two decades ago.

For now, government subsidies and aid from schools are helping hold down net tuition and fees — the actual cost students pay when grants and tax breaks are factored in.

Estimated average net tuition and fees this fall at public four-year colleges were $1,540, while at private colleges they were $11,320. Both are up from last year, but below what students paid five years ago.

“Despite the fact sticker prices have gone way up, there is so much grant aid out there that many students are really paying less than they did before,” said Sandy Baum, a senior policy analyst for the College Board and a Skidmore College economics professor.

That’s also contributed to a growing gap between those who receive aid and the one-third of full-time students who pay full freight for college, the report says.

Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said it’s important to note that tuition is climbing after a decade in which family income did not rise for 90% of Americans, and at a time when many areas of the country face high unemployment.

“We’re kind of on a national treadmill,” Callan said. “We’re putting additional aid in that is helping to buffer some students from the severity of this. But the tuition increases and the bad economy are raising the need for financial aid much faster than our investment in aid is moving.”

The student aid report found that grant aid per full-time undergraduate student increased an estimated 22% from 2008-2009, while federal loans increased 9%.

The Obama administration’s restructuring of the federal student loan program this year will direct more money to Pell Grants and tie future increases in the maximum grant to inflation. But college officials say the impact will be minimal because next year’s increase is small and tuition is rising faster than inflation.

Most students attend public schools, and states continue to cut appropriations. After adjusting for inflation, per-student state spending on higher education dropped nearly 9% in 2008-09 and another 5% in 2009-10 — and that spending includes soon-to-expire federal stimulus money.

Community colleges, which educate about 40% of college students, remain affordable, with tuition averaging $2,713. Lower income students receive enough aid to attend essentially for free.

Still, tuition rose 6% at public two-year colleges. State and local budget cuts paired with skyrocketing enrollment have prompted some schools to cut courses and limit enrollment.

The priciest private colleges are creeping closer to shattering the $60,000 ceiling in total cost to attend.

David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, emphasized net tuition and fees have declined 7.4% in the past decade in inflation-adjusted dollars because colleges are expanding student aid.

“Every institution that I talk to understands the absolutely critical role of aid and it’s going to be the thing they try to hold at the top of the list of priorities,” Warren said.

On average, about 55% of bachelor’s degree recipients at public colleges borrow money, and their debt is $19,800 by graduation, the College Board found.

Tuition at public colleges rose 7.9% this fall to avg. $7,605

The agency is now warning schools about the mistake after a fourth-grader’s parent discovered the error in the Civil War chapter of Our Virginia: Past and Present. The parent, Carol Sheriff, is also a history professor at the College of William and Mary.

Sheriff says blacks occasionally took up arms to defend their masters, but it was illegal to use blacks as soldiers in the Confederacy until toward the war’s end. None of those companies saw action on the battlefront and most worked involuntarily as laborers

Our Virginia author Joy Masoff told The Washington Post that she found the passage on the Internet.

Virginia textbook includes Civil War error on blacks in Confederacy

On Oct. 2, a raid by New Haven, Conn., police to break up a party by Yale University students led to claims of police brutality and excessive force.

One week later, a party by Penn State University students turned violent when a fight between two women spilled out onto the streets of State College, leaving two students with stab wounds.

Last week, Pace University football player Danroy “DJ” Henry was shot and killed by police outside a popular eatery frequented by students from the nearby Pace campus.

What they have in common is alcohol — a common component in encounters between police and college students that can fuel tensions.

“Obviously you’re going to have some standard issues,” said Eugene O’Donnell, professor of law and police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “You’re going to have issues about later-night activity. You’re going to have alcohol-related issues.”

The violence outside Finnegan’s Grill in Thornwood, N.Y., came after a celebration of the school’s homecoming game, attended by about 150 people including students and members of the football team. The crowd spilled into the parking lot after 1 a.m. after a fight inside the bar. On Friday, a law enforcement source told The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News that Henry had a blood-alcohol level of 0.13%, exceeding the legal limit of 0.08%.

It was hardly the first run-in between police and Pace students. In November 2000, several students were among eight men who trashed a campus townhouse in retaliation for an earlier fight at a local bar.

And on April 25, 2008, a 21-year-old student was charged with assaulting his ex-girlfriend in her dorm room during a drunken rampage.

“Pace is like a little city unto itself, and they do require police resources,” said Mount Pleasant (N.Y.) Police Chief Louis Alagno. “We’re called there mostly for things such as motor vehicle accidents and aided cases, but we also respond for criminal incidents. There are burglaries, larcenies and the occasional sex crime or assault. It does require police resources.”

You don’t have to tell police in New Rochelle, N.Y., a city with three colleges — College of New Rochelle, Iona College and Monroe College.

“We’ll have pockets of disturbances,” said New Rochelle police Capt. Robert Gazzola, head of the department’s police services division. “I don’t think there’s any lasting animosity between the police department, the Iona College students, the Monroe College students. A lot of it is isolated incidents that perk up and we have to respond.”

The city, plagued for years by rowdy behavior in local bars tackled the problem years ago by passing a stricter “cabaret law” that allowed police to go after and target troublesome bars.

Police in Mount Pleasant and Pleasantville, where most Pace watering holes are located, have enforced underage drinking laws for years — a common tactic in college towns.

But the bar at the center of a fatal shooting had no recent history of problems involving students, according to state and local law enforcement.

Finnegan’s seemed an unlikely place for a violent encounter between police and celebrating college students last weekend.

Pace students interviewed by The Journal News said they generally had not had negative encounters with local police. Some went so far as to say they were shocked to hear of the violence outside Finnegan’s last weekend.

“I wouldn’t say they’re aggressive, they’re just doing their job,” said student John Tripodi. “I guess what they did (outside Finnegan’s) was a little excessive, but if I was him I don’t know what I would have done.”

But Megan Murphy, a freshman accounting major at the Mount Pleasant college, called the police account of the shooting “ridiculous.”

“It’s all too iffy right now. I’m not sure,” Murphy said. “I wasn’t there so I can’t say what exactly happened. (Henry) probably just panicked.”

Alcohol fuels tensions between college students, police

“I told Zach we are putting him on a hug diet — one to say hello and one to say goodbye,” said Joyce Downing, who helped start a new program at the University of Central Missouri that serves students with disabilities.

The hope is that polishing up on social skills, like cutting back on the hugs, living in residence halls and going to classes with non-disabled classmates will help students like Neff be more independent and get better jobs.

In years past, college life was largely off-limits for students with such disabilities, but that’s no longer the case. Students with Down syndrome, autism and other conditions that can result in intellectual disabilities are leaving high school more academically prepared than ever and ready for the next step: college.

Eight years ago, disability advocates were able to find only four programs on university campuses that allowed students with intellectual disabilities to experience college life with extra help from mentors and tutors. As of last year, there were more than 250 spread across more than three dozen states and two Canadian provinces, said Debra Hart, head of Think College at the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts Boston, which provides services to people with disabilities.

That growth is partly because of an increasing demand for higher education for these students and there are new federal funds for such programs.

The federal rules that took effect this fall allow students with intellectual disabilities to receive grants and work-study money. Because details on the rules are still being worked out, the earliest students could have the money is next year. Hart and others expect the funds to prompt the creation of even more programs.

“There is a whole generation of young people who have grown up under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, and to them it (college) is the logical next step,” Hart said.

The college programs for these students vary. Generally the aim is to support the students as they take regular classes with non-disabled students. Professors sometimes are advised to modify the integrated classes by doing things like shifting away from a format that relies entirely on lectures and adding more projects in which students can work in groups.

One program in Idaho offers classes in drama, art and sign language. Students on other campuses can improve their computer skills or take child development classes.

Sometimes they’re paired with non-disabled students and advocates say the educational coaches, mentors and tutors who help them often are studying to become special education teachers or social workers and learn from the experience too.

Disability advocates say only a small percentage of these students will receive degrees, but that the programs help them get better jobs.

Historically, adults with intellectual disabilities have been restricted primarily to jobs in fast food restaurants, cleaning or in so-called “sheltered workshops,” where they work alongside other disabled people and often earn below-minimum wages, said Madeleine Will, vice president of the National Down Syndrome Society.

With additional training, Hart said participants can go on to do everything from being a librarian’s assistants to data-entry work in an office.

Much remains to be learned about what type of program works best, but Hart said that will likely change.

Besides allowing for federal financial aid for these programs, Congress also has appropriated $10.56 million to develop 27 model projects to identify successful approaches.

The infusion of federal money has generated some criticism. Conservative commentator Charlotte Allen said it’s a waste to spend federal tax dollars on the programs and insisted that calling them college dilutes the meaning of college.

“It’s a kind of fantasy,” said Allen, a contributing editor for Minding the Campus, a publication of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute. “It may make intellectually disabled people feel better, but is that what college is supposed to be all about?”

Oftentimes students with these disabilities stop their formal education when they finish high school, which is usually around the age of 21. Some districts have a partnership with colleges under which the district pays for their 18- to 21-year-old students to take higher education classes. In other cases, college costs are paid for by the parents.

Their children previously haven’t been eligible for grants and work study money because they generally weren’t seeking a degree and wouldn’t have been admitted to college through the typical process.

These programs look “at higher education for what it’s purpose in our community and our culture is — to provide opportunities for learning,” said Meg Grigal, a researcher who works with Hart.

Back at the University of Central Missouri, Neff and another participant in the program for students with developmental issues, Gabe Savage, laugh with friends during lunch in their residence hall cafeteria.

Savage, a 26-year-old from Kansas City, is grateful for it all — new friends, the chance to try out for a school play, brush up on his computer skills and even take a bowling class with non-disabled students looking to earn a physical education credit.

“It’s an answer to my prayer that I am here,” he said. “I always wanted to do this.”

More youths with mental disabilities going to college

“We see an increase in graduate school applications and enrollments whenever the economy really turns south,” says Nathan Bell, director of research and policy analysis for the Council of Graduate Schools. In its report last month, it said the number of applications to U.S. graduate schools grew 8.3% from 2008 to 2009. The council has tracked grad school enrollments annually since 1986 and surveyed 699 schools in 2009. Total enrollments increased 4.7% in 2009, compared to 3% the previous year.

Last year more students than ever took the GRE, the exam required for many graduate programs, and this year may set record highs again, says David Payne, vice president of Educational Testing Service, the non-profit that develops, administers, and scores the GRE.

Concern about the job market — and wanting to put off paying back student loans — were major factors for University of California-Davis senior Daniel Yeshiwas, who says he changed his plans to work for a few years before attending graduate school. He plans to apply for fall 2011.

“I don’t really know exactly what I want to do yet, but going to graduate school, it’s still moving me towards a career, and it’s something to further put off that question of what I’m gonna do for the rest of my life,” says Yeshiwas.

Danielle McManus, a pre-professional and pre-graduate program advisor at the UC-Davis, says reasoning like Yeshiwas’ is not uncommon; she adds that many students apply to grad school as a backup plan, in case they can’t find a job.

“Graduate school seems better than the specter of aimless unemployment. If these students do manage to find a job, however, they might prefer to start making money right away,” she says.

In just the past two years, “students have become so hyper-focused on career opportunities that these programs can provide for them,” says Rob Franek, publisher of The Princeton Review test prep and research company. “They are thinking about the value of professional experience through a recession lens.”

The Princeton Review’s new guidebooks, The Best 172 Law Schools, The Best 300 Business Schools, and The Best 168 Medical Schools, can help students evaluate whether a graduate program’s value is worth the investment, says Franek; a “career prospects” rating, is included in both the law and business school guides. That rating combines several employment statistics, such as how many students are employed upon graduation, average starting salaries, career services offered, and the number of students employed a year after graduation.

Advice for those considering grad school:

•Leave at least six weeks to study before any qualifying exams like the GRE or the LSAT, says The Princeton Review’s Rob Franek, and consider different schools’ admissions criteria, (includeded in the company’s guides).

•Trying to decide which program to pursue? “Think about which classes you’ve done best in and what you are most interested in, particularly because graduate school is so targeted and so specific,” says UC-Davis adviser Danielle McManus. She also recommends that students ask professors for advice.

•Get free practice GRE questions through the ETS website; many MBA programs now accept the GRE, not just the GMAT, says ETS’ David Payne.

“With employers, the undergraduate degree is becoming pretty much a required certificate or credential for entry level positions. To advance, a masters degree is becoming more the preferred,” he adds.

“Best Career Prospects”

Law schools

1. University of Pennsylvania

2. Northwestern University

3. New York University

4. Vanderbilt University

5. Harvard University

6. University of Chicago

7. University of Virginia

8. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

9. Boston College

10. Boston University

Business Schools

1. Harvard University

2. Stanford University

3. Northwestern University

4. Georgetown University

5. University of Pennsylvania

6. University of Virginia

7. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

8. Duke University

9. University of California-Berkeley

10. Carnegie Mellon University

Source: The Princeton Review’s Best 172 Law Schools and Best 300 Business Schools 2011 Editions

(Based on institutional data on graduates’ employment and average starting salaries, and student survey data on how much practical experience and career services support their law and b-schools offered.)

More details on the rankings at The Princeton Review .

Considering grad school? Advice in a flat job market

Instead, the former judge found a “lively, articulate cross section of people” she meets for dinner, aspiring author workshops, parties and game nights, says Brown, now an attorney who joined Mensa as an undergrad at Spelman College.

“Honestly, it doesn’t look like a convention out of Revenge of the Nerds,” she says with a laugh. “We do have that, but that’s not all. There’s a little of everything.”

Brown, 34, is part of a growing and increasingly visible younger contingent of Mensa, the 58,000- member “High-IQ Society.”

American Mensa says 42% of new members in 2009-2010 were ages 29-49; in the past decade, membership of people under 30 has grown 63%.

American Mensa, now 50 years old, “is getting up there in age,” says national chair Elissa Rudolph, a Mensan for 35 years. But it aims to get “more people involved and younger people more involved,” she says.

It hopes to attract some with National Mensa Testing Day this Saturday; an estimated 6 million people in the USA (about 1 in 50) could qualify, Mensa says.

To qualify, a person must score in the top 2% of the population on an accepted, standardized test. That score can come from Mensa’s own admission test or one of 200 others, such as the Stanford-Binet, the Miller Analogies Test, the GMAT or the GRE.

What’s in it for members, besides bragging rights?

A network of people with whom to share a wide range of social and intellectual activities, says Rudolph, who joined in 1975 when she was a single mother in Pittsburgh.

Andrew Heffernan, 33, a reliability engineer in Albany, N.Y., appreciates the variety of people. “It’s not a professional organization, so we’re not all interested in the same thing,” he says. “Everybody has something new to add.” He was also familiar with Mensa’s “nerd” reputation but put it aside after checking out his local chapter, one of 135 across the country, three years ago.

“It’s not about segregating myself into a highly intelligent group, but learning and trying new things,” he says.

Adds Brown: “You know that the person standing beside you is going to be bright and interesting, even if you don’t share their politics or beliefs. I know I can count on having a lively discussion about something.”

Educating gifted children is of special interest to Mensa, Rudolph

says; more than 1,300 members are under 18. In addition to local activities and excursions, there is a national college scholarship program (for members and non-members alike), resources for gifted children, a quarterly online magazine, Fred, and a group for teens.

Alexis Wise, 19, a member since age 14, coordinates that group via text messages, Facebook and other forms of communications, and she helps plan activities for teens at Mensa’s annual national gathering.

Now a sophomore at Yale, she says: “I have the coolest group of friends, and that’s only grown over the years. I’ve learned so much. Not the type of academic learning we’re used to in school, but learning though conversation, interacting.”

Mensa’s face is changing as it catches a young brain wave

Her hopes were dashed, though, when her classmates voted for a ceremony featuring traditional African dress. Johnson-Shaw ended up wearing a long, patterned skirt and matching head wrap, and her football-player escort, instead of a suit and tie, wore a loin cloth.

“I look back at the queens in ball gowns, and I’m still envious,” Johnson-Shaw says now.

She graduated from college in 1972 and lives in Ahoskie, N.C., where she retired following a career with the Internal Revenue Service. In the past week, Johnson-Shaw has been reliving her collegiate memories because she can now access a digital archive of the Hawk yearbook back to 1959, the inaugural edition.

Scanned images are available for free online and let readers browse through a yearbook cover to cover or search by name.

The grainy images from the yearbooks are full of period hairdos and clothes. They also show the school’s evolution from a tiny, historically black college into an institution that now offers doctoral programs and enrolls 4,500 students.

“It’s fascinating when you look back, not just at the changing hairstyles but also at who was in the classrooms, the activities people were involved in and the new buildings,” said Jennifer Neumyer, the college’s special collections and outreach librarian.

The 1960 yearbook includes a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. He spoke at commencement and is pictured in a cap and gown with a procession of soon-to-be graduates strolling behind him.

Nationwide movement

Colleges across the United States have been making digital copies of old yearbooks, student newspapers and course catalogues, said Laurie Gemmill, program manager of the Mass Digitization Collaborative at LYRASIS.

The Atlanta-based group for libraries and information professionals has helped 100 colleges and universities create digital archives of materials that include yearbooks. Preserving the documents is only part of the benefit, she said.

“Institutions are more interested in sharing their materials. So many materials are hidden from people. You have to go in and request it. The special collections are there for people to use, but it can be intimidating to some,” Gemmill said.

Among the colleges that have created digital archives of yearbooks: Penn State University in State College, Pa.; Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte; St. Mary’s College of Maryland in St. Mary’s City, Md.; and the University of Maryland in College Park, Md.

Penn State’s yearbook, La Vie, goes back to 1890.

Kimberly Conway Dumpson, director of alumni affairs and planned giving at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, said digital yearbooks are another way for her to connect with alumni and raise money for the school. This week while meeting with alumni in Florida, she pulled out her laptop and showed one man his yearbook photo from 45 years ago.

“He was just blown away, so excited. He couldn’t stop reminiscing about friends and alumni,” Dumpson said.

Sandra Odoms Hawkins, a 1976 graduate, said she checked out her old yearbook online and isn’t the least bit embarrassed by her clothing choices. The 56-year-old lives in Edgewater, Md., and works in the information technology department for the U.S. Senate Office of the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper.

“Some of the styles have started coming back around. You should have kept those platform shoes,” Hawkins said.

Horatio William “Bill” Jones III graduated in 1978 and is now an employee of CBS News in Charlotte He finds it neat that one photographer, Thomas Wiles, took almost all of the yearbook pictures from 1959 to 1989.

The 60-year-old Jones said he grew up in Princess Anne and remembers when jazz greats Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and Duke Ellington played at the college. He said he’s been so busy clicking through the yearbook online to see how the college has changed and to see old friends and faculty members, that he hasn’t looked at his own picture.

“I don’t need to. I know what I look like,” he said.

College yearbook collections go digital

The Government Accountability Office report was released Aug. 4, and class-action lawsuits have now been filed in California, Colorado, Arkansas and Utah by former students and employees, who argue in most cases that a school lied to them or misled them.

Some companies, including the University of Phoenix and Westwood College, closed campuses or launched internal investigations after the release of the report, which found that admissions officials in four cases encouraged applicants to commit fraud by lying on financial aid forms.

Shareholders have filed class-action lawsuits against at least five schools, noting the effect of the report on stock prices and citing securities fraud.

Lawsuits alleging deception at for-profit colleges are not new. Last year, the parent companies of the University of Phoenix and Westwood agreed to pay the federal government millions of dollars each to settle separate false-claims lawsuits. In both cases, the schools admitted no wrongdoing.

John McKernan, chairman of Education Management Corp., which operates about 95 schools in 31 states, including Argosy University, says lawsuits are part of the territory. “Statistically, the bigger you get, the more (complaints) you’re going to have.”

Tampa lawyer Jillian Estes, whose firm has represented students in several class-action suits against for-profits, including Westwood College, says she hopes the federal scrutiny will bolster students’ cases.

“We’ve been trying to raise this flag for so long,” she says. “It helps for judges to realize this isn’t just some kids who are a little unhappy, but a nationwide systemic problem.” Westwood in March sued Estes and her law firm for defamation.

A Texas agency has threatened to revoke or deny one company’s licenses to operate three for-profit campuses there. One college received a similar warning in Wisconsin.

Still, tens of thousands of students say for-profit colleges are their best option. An unprecedented 91,000 public comments were submitted in response to a proposal that would deny federal student aid to for-profit colleges whose graduates don’t earn enough to pay back student loans. The Education Department estimates one-third or more came from students worried that their college would close if the proposal is adopted.

More lawsuits target for-profit colleges

Even so, by the time Randi-Lyn graduates in 2012, her parents probably will have paid an average of nearly $1,000 a year in fees to the school’s athletics department. They just didn’t know it from the school’s billing statements or website.

“We’re looking at five years because she changed majors. That’s $5,000,” Randall says. “That’s one of her loans. That would have paid rent off-campus for a year. It’s kind of disheartening. I don’t think I’d have as much of a problem with it if I knew I was paying it. With what we’re paying, it doesn’t seem right.”

Like most other schools in NCAA Division I, Radford relies on student fees to help support ever-expanding athletics budgets. Many schools, including Radford, do not itemize where those fees go for those who pay the tuition bills, USA TODAY found in an ongoing examination of college athletics finances. The amounts going to athletics are soaring, and account for as much as 23% of the required annual bill for in-state students.

Students were charged more than $795 million to support sports programs at 222 Division I public schools during the 2008-09 school year, according to an analysis of thousands of pages of financial documents. Adjusting for inflation, that’s an 18% jump since 2005, making athletics funding at public schools a key force in the rapidly escalating cost of higher education.

At nearly all schools, various mandatory fees are tacked on to tuition, and can cover everything from student health care to computers. But the largest portion often goes toward running the school’s athletics department. In exchange, students typically get free or reduced admission to sporting events.

But when demand exceeds available student seating, some students can get shut out. Many aren’t interested in the games anyway.

“She does go to some of the games,” Linda Randall says of her daughter, “and it’s nice that they let them in free. … But she’s going there for the (academics); she’s not going to fund athletics.”

There were 42 Division I athletics departments that reported receiving no student-fee money in 2009, but some of those schools say student-fee money is included in institutional funding provided to athletics programs. Many schools help cover the gap between their athletics departments’ expenses and revenue because they regard sports teams — especially football and men’s basketball teams — as important parts of campus life and excellent vehicles for generating publicity and alumni support.

A University of California-Berkeley faculty group seeking ways to reduce the campus’ financial support of athletics acknowledged in a recent report that besides having a “significant” impact on the school’s $250 million in annual academic fundraising, Cal’s wide-ranging and successful sports program “adds to campus spirit and unity, provides free advertising for the campus, helps in branding, and provides a link and outreach to alumni.”

But at NCAA Division I schools, athletics spending has been rising at a faster rate than increases in academic spending, prompting various higher-education groups to call for a change in priorities.

At least six schools — all in Virginia — charged each of their students more than $1,000 as an athletics fee for the 2008-09 school year. That ranged from 10% to more than 23% of the total tuition and mandatory-fee charges for in-state students, the primary customers at most public universities.

Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board and co-author of the organization’s annual Trends in College Pricing report, asks: Is athletics “10% of what you’re getting out of college?”

At least five states, including Virginia, ban or limit the use of public and/or tuition money for athletics. For some schools in those states, relatively large fee charges become an alternative. In other states, on top of dedicated fees that might or might not have been approved by students, athletics departments often get other financial support from their schools.

The Randalls are not the only parents who were unaware of the scope of the athletics fees. Among the 20 schools nationally that had the highest estimated per-student athletics fee charges in 2009, based on a USA TODAY analysis, 15 schools confirmed that they do not disclose their per-student athletics fee charges on their billing statements, websites or in other official school publications.

Officials at four of those 15 schools — Radford, James Madison, Longwood and Norfolk State, all of which are in Virginia — said the information could be found in an appendix of a state report.

At Virginia Military Institute, the athletics fee figure is “buried in our budget,” says Col. Stewart MacInnis, a spokesman. “I had to go dig it out myself. It’s not where anybody would go look for it. You’ve identified a weak spot.”

Some schools don’t reveal how much students pay toward athletics, to try to avoid controversy.

“Why would you?” asks Jack Boyle, vice president for business affairs and finance at Cleveland State, which was just outside the top 20 in estimated per-student athletics-fee charges.

” …Whenever we spell something out, somebody decides they don’t want that service. We don’t spell out in tuition that 1.8% of it goes to run the religion department. ‘I’m an atheist. Why should I pay for them? I’d never go to any of their courses.’ “

‘A matter of transparency’

Schools’ reluctance to make public how much athletics departments get from student fees runs counter to federal, and some state-level, efforts to require greater transparency of college costs.

The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 this year began requiring schools to annually report to the Education Department separate figures for tuition and required fees. (They had been allowed to report a combined figure.)

Starting in July 2011, schools with the largest percentage increases in price over the previous three years will be listed by the department and required to report the reasons for the increases and what will be done to cut costs.

In May, the University of California system voted to force greater disclosure of how its schools use money from a fee that can fund certain programs, including athletics. Each campus will have to maintain a website that says how the spending of that money compares with the spending recommended by the campus’ student-fee advisory committee.

In June, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics advocated making student fees apparent as a means to reform athletics spending.

“At a time when the cost of attendance at college is going up at a very high rate, it’s a matter of transparency and fairness and equity that people ought to know what they’re spending their money on,” commission co-chairman William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said at that time. “I think that is a way of bringing pressure to bear — this transparency and this exposure of revenues and expenditures — and beginning to put a hold on, to tamp down, the rate of increase (of spending) in intercollegiate athletics.”

After Kirwan’s comments, USA TODAY found that two schools in the Maryland system were among the top 20 in estimated per-student athletics fee charges in 2009. Maryland-Baltimore County specifically disclosed its athletics fees on its website and the university system’s; Towson provided only the amount of what the bursar’s office’s website called a “University Fee.”

“We do not itemize each cost or fee,” bursar Thomas Ruby says. “We do not get into that detail. That’s how this university operates.”

Kirwan said in early August that Towson’s athletics fee is “in the public domain” because it was discussed at a system board of regents public meeting, but “it isn’t as transparent as I think it should be. It ought to be more transparent on the website, and it will be addressed.”

Within two days, Towson’s athletics fee — $767 per student for the 2010-11 school year — had been posted on the university system’s site; it remains unspecified on Towson’s site. (Following this story’s original publication on Sept. 22, Towson began showing its specific athletics fee information on the university’s web site.)

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, plans to survey students to see how many are aware of athletics fees. But even the center acknowledges that increasing accountability is tough — mostly because even if students are aware of the fee, they rarely are clear on the true cost, administrative director Matthew Denhart says.

Many students pay their college bills with loans, so they don’t think about what the true cost will be. And third-party payers — parents, scholarships, Pell Grants — pass on the cost to someone else.

“There’s a lot of, ‘I’m not paying for it anyway, so why fight it?’ ” Denhart says.

‘Absolutely getting nothing’ from fee

There are those who are trying to fight athletics fee increases or the fees themselves.

Kentucky state Rep. Joni Jenkins filed a bill this year to prohibit public universities from charging commuter students mandatory athletics and meal-plan fees. Her bill was never taken up by a state legislative committee, but she says she plans to refile the bill soon so it will be heard in the next legislative session starting in January.

“I represent a middle-class district where parents are struggling and students are struggling,” Jenkins says. “So many of the students from my district are part time because they can’t afford to go full time, and they have to work, and they are absolutely getting nothing out of that athletic fee.”

She believes commuter students and others should be able to opt out of paying athletics fees, although she acknowledges that for “some of the smaller schools that don’t have the same revenues, (an athletics fee) does keep their non-revenue sports going.”

At Montana, however, the student body rejected a proposed athletics-fee increase, overriding action by elected student leaders. Representatives from the Associated Students of the University of Montana (ASUM) approved a plan to boost the athletics fee to $144 annually from $92, but other students were so outraged that they forced the issue to be put to an all-campus vote in May. The plan was defeated by a 2-to-1 ratio.

ASUM President Ashleen Williams, who supported the fee increase, predicts the issue will come up again in the fall. “Sometimes you have to make hard decisions,” she says. Relying heavily on ticket revenue to fund athletics is a “really risky game” because sales — which have been Montana’s largest or second-largest revenue source each of the past five years — can wane if teams don’t win.

Hawaii’s athletics department had been trying to rely on the $23 million a year it generated from ticket sales, donations, television and marketing, plus an additional $10 million in direct and indirect support from the university. But by this summer, the department had accumulated about $10 million in debt and was adding to that at a rate of $1.5 million to $2 million a year. Over the objections of undergraduate and graduate student organizations, the state board of regents voted in July to impose an athletics fee for the first time.

Beginning in January, students will be charged $50 a semester, an amount that is projected to increase the athletics department’s net revenue by about $1.8 million a year; the fee money will be available for any purpose except staff compensation or benefits.

“It showed a pretty messed-up sense of priorities,” says Amy Donahue, chairwoman of the University of Hawaii Graduate Student Organization’s advocacy committee. “If we’re going to pay, it should reflect the priorities of the university and benefit the entire university community.”

Associate athletics director Carl Clapp says the department hopes the fee will have such a benefit.

Athletics “is by no means the most important part” of the university, Clapp says, but “a strong, successful athletic program is very important to the connection with alumni, donors and leaders in the state, and it magnifies the university not only in Hawaii but beyond the state. That’s the visibility that the athletics program can have.”

‘We don’t ask where it’s going’

At some schools, students have been willing to approve fee increases for a variety of purposes.

In March 2009, Bowling Green students voted to approve a $60-per-semester fee to help finance the construction of a new campus arena/convocation center — and the measure carried by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. (The school won’t collect the fee until the arena’s completion, scheduled for 2011.)

Also that month, Utah State students voted 53% to 47% to more than double their athletics fee to nearly $120 a semester as part of a funding plan to help the school have a more viable program in the NCAA’s elite-level Football Bowl Subdivision.

There are students who say they don’t mind paying sizable athletics fees, regardless of whether the fees are specifically disclosed. James Madison University was another school among the top 20 in estimated per-student fee charges that did not disclose its specific athletics fee ($1,080 in 2008-09, according to the state report the school cited). Student body President Andrew Reese says that “it’s not cause for much concern for (students)” because the school provides free admission to events, puts student sections in prime seating areas, and “athletics is a very big part of the student culture.”

Cleveland State junior Andrew Sobczak says, “I personally would like it if I knew what I was paying for — and where the money was going.” But he has no problem with most of his overall fee money going toward intercollegiate athletics: “How much? That can be questionable. But I think it should. If you want to go to school, part of the whole school atmosphere is sports as well.”

If students know little or nothing about general fees, Sobczak says, it’s partly their own fault for not being more educated consumers. “We don’t question it, we don’t ask where it’s going, we don’t do any of that. So it’s definitely partly our fault that the system works that way.”

Boyle, Cleveland State’s vice president of business affairs and finance, says that if students don’t want their money going toward sports, there are options such as online schools and schools such as the University of Phoenix that do not have sports.

At Cleveland State, general fees are considered part of tuition, Boyle says. The money from collected fees generally is sliced up three ways, he says. About 40% goes to paying off debt from new student buildings. About 45% goes to athletics. The rest funds activities such as student government.

Linda Randall says being told about Radford’s athletics fee “up front would have been better. We still would have sent her there. She loves it. She’s happy. But it would have been nice to know.”

How student fees boost college sports amid rising budgets