Western Governors University president's salary

Simmons said if they had to compete with the for-profits' salary levels, the salary would be a lot higher. "It is substantially below the for-profit peer institutions that we find ourselves competing against," he said. "One of the challenges we face is keeping good people and not having them go to for-profit schools."

When Simmons, the head of Simmons Media Group, came on WGU's board about seven years ago, it had about 1,000 students. Now there are around 20,000 students and tuition hasn't been raised in five or six years, he said.

Results like these play into the size of Mendenhall's bonuses. Simmons said the board of trustees set high goals for enrollment, retention rate, satisfaction rate, financial affairs and other factors. "Virtually every year the targets that have been set have been met or excelled," Simmons said. "Each year as we have reviewed compensation we set higher bars for the next year, thinking that this is going to be almost impossible to achieve. And yet year after year this senior management group has been able to do it."

The full compensation report is online at chronicle.com/section/Executive-Compensation/150 and a 2008 Deseret News story about pay at Utah's public colleges is at www.deseretnews.com/article/700230523/College-presidents-to-see-moderate-salary-hike.html

Contributing: Elizabeth Stuart

e-mail: mdegroote@desnews.com