Gee’s 3% raise draws some students’ ire

@A Concerned Citizen:

1) Meyer's salary comes out of the AD budget, not the school's general fund. Convince athletic boosters to become academic boosters and then you may feel better. By your logic, paying TA's to teach all classes would be cheaper hence better for students.
RESPONSE: This is the oldest and most misleading argument in the world. The football and basketball ticket prices, concessions, parking and merchandise prices are astronomical. The cost of attending games is out of reach for most students who should get preferential treatment and cheap tickets.

The cost of much of the security, traffic and work stoppages on Ohio State University property on football Saturday, for example, further add to the cost.

In any event, the salary for a public football coach, that is roughly double the cost of an overpaid public university president is obscene, wasteful and a slap in the face to Ohio's taxpayers, students, graduates and parents.

2) Gee is marketing OSU to get more informed and scholarly students (see #1)
RESPONSE: Is he? In part, but the marketing budget exceeds the return on investment. How many top students have been lost due to the perceived waste at the university? The marketing aspect is way overrated. Spend $2,000,000 each year on a half dozen marketing firms and I will bet the results will improve.

3) Gee manages far more employees and a much greater budget than other "companies" and makes a fraction of what they are being paid (see $4-$5M+ bonus).
RESPONSE: This is not correct. He manages no one but his assistants which at last count was in the neighborhood of 25? Yes, he oversees many more, but Ohio State is not a "company" that earns its money through the sale of products and services that consumers want. Most of the money comes from students and taxpayers, both in Ohio and nationally.

Will an OSU education get you a job? Only if you are in STEM and maybe even not then. Gee should get rid of all of the Associate Provosts for Pencil Pushing and the Assistant Deans for Reminding People to Change Their Passwords. Administration should be sleek and streamlined and students should not be expected to mortgage their future so that Gee can wear a brand new bow-tie every day.

At this salary, Dr. Gee is overpaid. All the weak arguments in the world won't change the minds of parents, students and alumni who pay the bills. Pile this salary on top of urban Meyer's salary, then throw in the salaries of the assistant football coaches and top administrators and what you get are a small group of people who are siphoning off money that is better spent on the students.

Now in all fairness, if someone is offered anyone pile of money, its unlikely that that they would turn it down. From this perspective, the concern lies first and foremost with the Board of Trustees. Our country is in the worst economic times since the Great Depression and the university has a fire sale on the parking and is handing out a raise to its president that exceeds the average income of the typical Ohioan. Whether someone thinks it is justified or not, from the outside, from the public's point of view, it leaves the impression that the university is run very poorly from a financial perspective.