Executive Salaries at Georgetown

Georgetown University (Georgetown) is one of the top private universities on the east coast and in the USA.  At $76,490 a year for tuition, room, and board (an estimate for the undergraduate school year 2019-2020), Georgetown’s fees are right in line with other top private colleges and, yet people may still wonder why a 4-year education at Georgetown costs more than $300,000?

The answer: tuition dollars are supporting a huge education machine where, in the case of Georgetown, more than half of the total expenses ($662 million out of $1.3 billion, not including depreciation) are compensation-related costs for the 14,465 employees in 2016 (an average of $46,000 per employee – compare this to $75,000 at Yale, $68,000 at Penn, $64,000 at Princeton, and $17,000 at Vanderbilt – which is similar in many ways).

After compensation, the next largest expense categories were fees for services ($201 million – mostly defined as “other fees”) followed by grants ($177 million), and  office-related (occupancy, IT, office, insurance, etc) expenses ($137 million).

In 2016, Georgetown reported $1.5 billion in total revenue, which primarily came from three sources:  $981 million from program service revenue (i.e. tuition, room and board, etc), $341 million from contributions (including $127 million from government grants), and $135 million from investments and gain on the sale of assets.

Georgetown spent about $1.4 billion in 2016 – about $110 million less than revenue received – but net assets decreased from $1.6 billion to $1.5 billion because of a $124 million unrealized loss on investments and a $102 million downward adjustment to assets due to pension and post retirement estimates and the spending rate allocated to operations.  In the most simple terms, the net assets (which some may refer to as the endowment) decreased by more than $200 million in 2016 but because Georgetown did not spend $110 million of revenue received that year, the decrease in net assets was only about $100 million.

It is interesting to note that if the total amount of expenses ($1.4 billion) is divided by the total number of students (18,500), then the total amount spent per student was about $75,675.

The Form 990 (2015 for the year beginning July 1, 2015 and ending June 30, 2016) reported 1,263 individuals received more than $100,000 in compensation, with the 20 most highly compensated individuals listed below:

• $3,812,679:  John R Thompson, III, Men’s Basketball Coach
• $  967,359: John J DeGioia, President and Director
• $  878,380:  Michael K Berry, Chief Investment Officer
• $  702,582:  Christopher L Augostini, Chief Operating Officer
• $  686,280:  Mehran Kamrava, Director, Center for Int and Reg Studies (QATAR)
• $  658,575:  Louis M Weiner, Director, Cancer Center
• $  657,207:  Brooks C Holtom, MSB Professor
• $  653,187:  Robert M Groves, Provost
• $  609,834:  Spiros Dimolitsas, SVP for Research and CTO
• $  557,044:  William M Treanor, Executive VP for Law Center
• $  445,169:  Howard J Federoff, Former Executive VP, Health Sciences
• $  437,314:  James J O’Donnell, Former Provost
• $  430,417:  David R Rubenstein, VP for Finance and Treasurer
• $  406,249:  Lisa Brown, VP and General Counsel
• $  354,530:  Bartley Moore, VP of Advancement
• $  345,533:  Edward B Healton, Executive VP Health Services
• $  300,223:  Erik Smulson, VP for Public Affairs
• $  281,935:  Rosemary E Kilkenny, VP Diversity and Equity
• $  276,640:  Edward M Quinn, Secretary
• $  220,087:  Lisa Krim, Former Interim General Counsel

As illustrated above, 17 out of the 20 (or 85%) of the most highly compensated employees are male while 3 (or 15% are female).  The 10 most highly compensated employees are male. It is also noteworthy that Georgetown paid nearly $1.1 million to the provost and former provost.

The IRS Form 990 also reports the following information:

Georgetown paid for first class and charter travel, travel for companions, tax indemnification and gross up payments, health or social club dues or initiation fees, and a housing allowance or residence for persona use. For more detailed information on these expenses, see the Form 990 (link below).

Georgetown spent $32.4 million on travel and $22.4 million on conferences for a total of $54.8 million in the year ending June 30, 2016.

To read the IRS Form 990 (2015) for the year ending June 30, 2016, click here.