Do you think the highest paid college president is at Harvard? Yale? Keep guessing.

Morgan Korn of the Daily Ticker reports.

College Student Debt Soars; College Presidents’ Pay Skyrockets

Presidents of U.S. colleges and universities fundraise with donors, preside over graduation ceremonies and provide unversities with long-range strategic vision. They are also paid handsomely for their work. Forty-two private college presidents earned more than $1 million in 2011, according to a new analysis by The Chronicle of Higher Education. The median total compensation for a college president in 2011 was $410,523, up 3.2% from 2010. Of the 550 presidents’ salaries that were included in the analysis, 180 took home more than $500,000 in 2011 compared to 50 in 2004.

The 10 highest paid college presidents in 2011 were:

1. Robert Zimmer, University of Chicago ($3.358 million)
2. Joseph Auon, Northeastern University ($3.121 million)
3. Dennis Murray, Marist College ($2.688 million)
4. Lee Bollinger, Columbia University ($2.327 million)
5. Lawrence Bacow, Tufts University ($2.223 million)
6. Amy Gutmann, University of Pennsylvania ($2.091 million)
7. Anthony Catanese, Florida Institute of Technology ($1.884 million)
8. Esther Barazonne, Chatham University ($1.812 million)
9. Shirley Ann Jackson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ($1.752 million)
10. Richard Levin, Yale University ($1.652 million)

Zimmer, the highest paid of the group, not only made eight times that of a typical private-college president, but he also receives free housing in a major U.S. metropolis, notes The Chronicle. Northeastern’s board of trustees released a statement in defense of its president’s 2011 pay: “Members of the board agree unanimously that continuing President Aoun’s leadership was among our higher priorities as trustees.”