Executive Compensation at the National Student Clearinghouse

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) is a tax-exempt, non-profit and non-governmental organization (a 501 (c) 4) that counts itself as the leading provider of educational reporting, data exchange, verification, and research services for nearly 14,000 high schools (representing 70% of secondary students enrolled) and 4,000 colleges and universities (representing 99% of students enrolled).

Based in Herndon, Virginia, NSC is governed by a board of directors (15) from educational institutions, associations, and finance.  In the most general terms, NSC raises about $60 million annually (primarily from verification, transcript, research, and enrollment verification services), spends about $60 million annually, and has about $25 million in net assets. So, NSC is a small non-profit whose primary expense is compensation for the employees.

321 employees received  $37 million in compensation, which equates to an average compensation of $115,000.  However, only 108 employees received more than $100,000 in compensation with the 15 most highly compensated employees reported to be:

• $747,788:  Ricardo D Torres, President and CEO
• $396,566:  Jonell Sanchez, VP Education Services
• $365,592:  Michael Ketcham, VP, CFO, and Treasurer
• $344,764:  Mary Chapin, VP and Chief Legal Officer, Corporate Sect’y
• $338,973:  Douglas Falk, VP and Chief Information Officer
• $326,384:  Lawrence Hatch, VP, Industry and Workforce Services
• $324,345:  George Levathes, VP, Compliance and Education
• $319,074:  Bridget Sedlock, Managing Director, Corp Services
• $315,724:  David G Landry, Managing Director, Solutions Delivery
• $311,131:  Roberta Hyland, Chief Data Officer
• $291,889:  John Ramsey, Managing Director, CISO
• $270,343:  Nancy Penna, Mgr, Business Development
• $267,595:  Douglas Shapiro, Executive Research Director
• $239,910:  Lan Qian, Solutions Architect
• $231,332:  William Wallen, Sr Specialist, Business Development

As illustrated above, the 15 most highly compensated employees received more than $5 million, which equates to an average compensation of $333,000.

11 of the 15 (73%) most highly compensated employees are male while 4 of the 15 (27%) are female.

NSC paid for companion travel. See Schedule J, Part III Supplemental Information for more detail.

Ricardo Torres participated($100,000)  in a supplemental non qualified retirement plan:

8 independent contractors received more than $100,000 in compensation with the five highest listed below:

• $1,338,183:  GSDS Group, Inc., of McLean, VA for IT consulting
• $1,208,179:  Aptude, Inc. of Naperville, IL for IT consulting
• $  775,115:  Talascend, LLC, of Detroit, MI for IT consulting
• $  650,889:  CC Pace, Inc., of Fairfax, VA for IT consulting
• $  601,426:  Convergent, of McLean, VA for IT consulting

More than $4.5 million was spent on IT consulting.

To read the IRS Form 990 (2018), click here.