Executive Salaries at Tulane

Tulane University (Tulane) is located in New Orleans, Louisiana. With nearly 14,000 students (8,600 undergraduate and 5,400 graduate), Tulane is a nonsectarian private university that commands about $75,000 annually for tuition and board, or about $300,000 for an undergraduate degree. Why so much?

The answer: tuition dollars are supporting a huge education machine where, in the case of Tulane, more than half of the total expenses ($528 million out of $1 billion in expenses, not including depreciation) are compensation-related costs for the 10,909 employees in 2017 (an average of $48,000 per employee – compare this to $75,000 at Yale, $68,000 at Penn, $64,000 at Princeton, and $46,000 at Georgetown).

The next largest expense categories were grants ($198 million – mostly for student financial assistance) followed by $136 million on office-related, supplies, and laboratory expenses (occupancy, IT, insurance, etc) and $58 million for fees for services (i.e. legal, accounting, investment, other).

In 2017, Tulane reported $1.1 billion in total revenue, $828 million of which came from program service revenue (i.e. tuition, room and board, hospital and medical group, etc) and $226 million from contributions (including $125 million from government grants), and $75 million from investments and the gains on the sale of assets.

Tulane reported spending about $43 million less than the total revenue received in 2017. With an additional $110 million of unrealized gains on investments and an $11 million change in assets (not detailed in Schedule O), Tulane’s net fund assets (which some may refer to as the endowment) increased from $1.420 billion at the beginning of the year to $1.583 billion at year-end.

The Form 990 (2016 for the year beginning July 1, 2016 and ending June 30, 2017) reported 830 employees received more than $100,000 in compensation, with the 22 most highly compensated individuals listed below:

• $1,674,000:  Jeremy Crigler, Chief Investment Officer
• $1,629,000:  William Fritz, Head Football Coach
• $1,155,000:  John W Thompson, Jr., Professor Psych Neuro
• $1,153,000:  Michael A Fitts, President
• $1,079,000:  Dr. Aaron Dumont, Professor and Chairman, Neurosurgery
• $1,057,000:  Dr. Steven Dibiase, Professor and Med Dir, Radiation and Oncology
• $  938,000:  Dr. Felix H Savoie, Vice Chairman Sports Medicine
• $  937,000:  Scott Cowen, Former President
• $  681,000:  Dr. Lee Hamm, SVP, Health Services
• $  578,000:  Anthony Lonno, Former SVP and CFO
• $  551,000:  Yvette Jones, Former SVP, External Affairs
• $ 506,000:  Richard Matasar, SVP, Strategic Initiatives and Inst Effectiveness
• $  487,000:  Michael Bernstein, SVP, Academic Affairs and Provost
• $  424,000:  Victoria Johnson, General Counsel
• $  335,000:  Charles McMahon, Chief Technology Officer
• $  317,000:  Anne Banos, Former Chief Administrative Officer
• $  315,000:  Virginia Wise, SVP for Advancement
• $  304,000:  Tania Tetlow, SVP and Chief of Staff
• $  282,000:  Patrick Norton, COO and Treasurer
• $  262,000:  Douglas Harrell, VP of Finance and Controller
• $  230,000:  Satyajit Dattagupta, VP Enrollment Management
• $  194,000:  Robin Forman, SVP for Academic Affairs and Provost

As illustrated above, 16 of the 22 (or 73%) most highly compensated employees are male while 6 are female (27%).

The Form 990 also reports that Tulane paid for health or social club dues or initiation fees and provided housing allowance or a personal residence for use.  See the 990 (link below) for more information.

To read the IRS Form 990 (2016) for the year ending June 30, 2017, click here.