Some of the leaders of American colleges and universities are making an awful lot of money. Is this what Democrats are talking about when they say we have to invest more in education?

Katrina Trinko of National Review reports.

College Is the Key to Financial Success… if you’re a college president, that is.

If the Occupy movement had been smart, the 1 percent they targeted would have been in the ivory tower, not on Wall Street.

According to an analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education, in the 2011 fiscal year, 132 presidents of public colleges and universities made $344,000 or more — the income level that marks the divide between the bottom 99 percent and the top 1 percent. Private-college presidents raked in even more: 208 made $344,000 or more in 2010, with 36 of those making $1 million or more.

It’s no surprise that college presidents are receiving top dollar: More and more, a year’s college tuition is exceeding the annual salary that a student can expect to make in the first few years after graduation. (And that assumes the student can even snag a job requiring a college degree in this dismal economy.)

At New York City’s New School, for instance, then-president (and now failed Nebraska Senate candidate) Bob Kerrey made $3 million in 2010. Students entering the college this fall will pay a steep $38,000 in tuition. (And that’s before room and board.) It’s the same story at other colleges. At Washington University of St. Louis, where the tuition is now $44,000, chancellor Mark Stephen Wrighton made around $2.3 million. At Vanderbilt University (tuition: $42,000), chancellor Nicholas Zeppos made $2.2 million, while at Columbia University (tuition: $47,000), president Lee Bollinger made $1.9 million.

It’s generally less profitable to be the president of a public university, but many of their paychecks would still look pretty darn good to any member of the 99 percent. Ohio State University president E. Gordon Gee made $2 million in 2011. Current tuition there is $10,000 in-state and $25,000 out-of-state. At Penn State (in-state $16,000, out-of-state $29,000), president Graham Spanier made nearly $1.1 million, and at the University of Kentucky (in-state $10,000, out-of-state $20,000), president Lee E. Todd Jr. made $1 million.