Who does this guy think he is, Hillary Clinton?

Jake New of Inside Higher Ed reports.

$135,000 for Commencement Speech?

After first trying to keep the deal a secret, the University of Houston admitted this week that it is paying Matthew McConaughey $135,000 — plus travel and a fee to a booking agent — to speak at its May commencement
As both a celebrity and an alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin, McConaughey was quite a coup for Houston.

“He may occasionally prowl the sidelines during a certain university’s football games in Austin, but the University of Houston ‘hooked’ him,” the university said in a statement when it first announced he would be coming, without mentioning the price. “It’s the kind of star power that adds muscle to the University of Houston’s bold reputation campaign, ‘Welcome to the Powerhouse.'”

The university first said it could not detail how expensive a lure it used to hook the actor, due to a confidentially agreement with the booking agency, which argued that the news might prompt “unfair negatives online.” After a month of pressure from The Houston Chronicle, the university released the information. The agency’s fears of negative publicity may have been founded, with the news setting off a wave of criticism and snark this week online.

When Inside Higher Ed reported on the news on April 1, many quipped that the very real news seemed worthy of a joke issue.
“The University of Houston should be prepared for the longest graduation speech in history given how slowly McConaughey speaks in those ridiculous car commercials,” a reader wrote. Paraphrasing the actor’s famous catchphrase, one Houston resident tweeted that the fee was “not all right, all right, all right.”