A six-figure salary, a company car, a five-bedroom house without a mortgage.
Sound like the benefits of a Fortune 500 CEO? Think again.
With the market for college-level administrators becoming more competitive, schools have been forced to make more attractive offers to lure and retain the most talented individuals in academia -- and out of the frequently more lucrative corporate world.
In some cases, academic institutions are finding that their competition for qualified candidates, such as University President Judith Rodin, Provost Robert Barchi and Executive Vice President John Fry, extends into other industries.
"When you think of a university like Penn, you've got to get the very top people," said Joan Blumenthal, principal and founder of Blumenthal-Hart, a retained search firm. "It's no different if you're General Electric or the University of Pennsylvania."
Benefits programs, performance plans, signing bonuses -- it's all part of a recruitment process that has become more political than ever before.
"Universities are finding themselves in the same competitive markets as private industries, and they are finding that they have had to employ some of the same practices that industry would employ," said Stephen Otzenberger, executive director of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, or CUPA-HR.
In addition to six-figure salaries -- Rodin's topped $600,000 in fiscal year 2000 -- many administrators receive performance bonuses, housing and insurance benefits and even loans through the University.
CUPA-HR President Patricia Couger said that the financial packages that were once offered only by private companies are by adopted by those in the academic sector out of necessity.
"We have seen a lot of those kinds of packages," Couger said. "Governing boards are increasingly seeing these individuals as comparable to individuals in the private sector."
The heightened emphasis on benefits packages has put some less financially sound universities, which are unable to provide such highly attractive bonuses, at a disadvantage.
Many Penn administrators, including Rodin, Fry and Barchi, have taken out loans or mortgages through the University, something that Couger said may not be possible at public universities because of legal constraints.
Other non-academic factors, such as a school's environment and surrounding area, may also play a factor in the size and type of benefits package that a university has to offer.
"Some of the institutions in California had housing assistance because it was so outrageously expensive that [administrators] couldn't afford it," Couger said.
More commonly, however, universities will alter packages to target candidates on an individual level.
Universities "are going to try to do whatever they can to make themselves more attractive, and that can be on a very individual basis," said Kim Morrisson, managing director and practice leader for higher education and not-for-profit work for Diversified Search.
Many schools will attempt to cater to the needs of candidates, through mortgage programs, bridge loans -- used for a short period of time until permanent financing is put in place -- or housing plans.
"A change of jobs in a university setting is one of the biggest changes a person can make," Morrisson said. "Often, it is done on an individual basis to help someone make a move."
With benefit plans on the rise in the academic sector, universities are also looking for more standardized methods of evaluating the performance of administrators.
Performance plans are common for high-ranking officers in the business sector, where administrators are often paid based on how well they accomplish certain goals and standards that are set for them.
It wasn't until recently, however, that this concept entered the academic sector on a broad scale.
"More and more universities are paying for performance in a merit-based situation," Morrisson said. "It would not be unusual to have targets and goals and have bonuses for achieving them."
Margot Lansing, founder of executive search consulting firm Lansing and Associates, said she believes that these performance-based incentives are "more the culture of very hard-pressed institutions."
Yet some observers say that the increased use of performance plans has created a more standard and effective way to evaluate academic administrators, treating them just like top officers in any American corporation.
"I think it has become much more professional," Blumenthal said. "They are reviewed and they're given raises based on whether they have accomplished their goals. They are in many respects similar to corporate America."
Since other industries are competing with universities for the top candidates, standards of evaluation have become even more crucial for schools looking to recruit administrators.
Couger said that much like CEOs in other industries, academic administrators may be evaluated on their performance in fund raising, academic programs or work in the political arena. The emphasis on performance may be leading some officials to spend less time worrying about student concerns and, according to some, focus on the financial bottom line.
"It's very important to establish measurable standards and hold people accountable," Couger said. "The bottom line in the private sector is whether you're in the red or the black at the end of the year."
Firms in other industries, such as consulting or finance, will offer up-front signing bonuses to lure candidates away from their administrative positions at colleges.
On the other end, some universities offer retention bonuses for officials who stay on and avoid the temptation of moving into the frequently more lucrative business sector. Penn, for example, offered Fry a $115,000 bonus to turn down corporate offers and remain at the University.
Retention can be critical to maintaining the stability in an academic institution, especially considering the difficulty of finding replacements for top administrators.
"The cost of recruiting can be very high," Morrisson said. "I think most universities realize that talent is a rare commodity that must be recruited or kept when it is strong."
