Does President Barchi deserve his pay raise?

“Yesterday, NJ.com reported that earlier this month, the Rutgers Board of Governors held a closed-door meeting in which they agreed to award President Barchi a $97,000 annual bonus in addition to a two-percent pay raise that would increase his salary to $676,260 a year.”

That’s from the article posted yesterday on the stats surrounding the latest news at RU. Good ole Barchi got a raise.

Everyone has an opinion on Barchi’s raise but no one really knows the facts. Nobody really understands why he’s getting the raise, how his performance was reviewed, and crucially, whether he deserves it. I know just one thing for sure: if you’re getting a raise then you should lower my damn tuition.

But seriously, what does President Barchi even do? What does any school president do? I picture them sitting in a large Dumbledore-esque chair reminiscing about times where we actually had a winning football season.

Obviously he does more than that, but is it enough for that significant of a bonus at a public university? I mean most university presidents are given competitive salaries, but Barchi’s raise seems pretty excessive.

Let’s see. He oversaw the integration of Rutgers and UMDNJ, got us into the Big 10, instated the construction all across Rutgers (which is annoying, but whatever Rutgers will be prettier in a few years), and fought to keep Camden in the Rutgers family. They all seem to be good things, I can admit that.

BUT. Between tuition hikes, a horrendous parking system, a spike in crime alerts, and the ongoing argument that we spend too much on athletics some Rutgers students are less than thrilled about his raise. On the other end some students valiantly came to Barchi’s defense in the Facebook comments section saying what he’s being paid is irrelevant.

Bottom line is: whatever Barchi’s being paid doesn’t really matter because we’ll all stop talking about it in a week. But seriously fam, lower tuition.