The university president would be more akin to a CEO running a large organization than a teacher. Still, this is not exactly the Fortune 500. What value do university presidents provide for these million dollar salaries?
As for what value university presidents (and administration) bring to their campus:
1. Supposedly they shmooze the haughty-taughty who make major donations.
2. In reality, they make life hell for faculty, by undermining tenure through “safe speech” codes, and by replacing full-time tenure track slots with part-time adjuncts.
3. Also, ending requirements that students take college algebra (or, calculus), a laboratory science, a foreign language, and diminishing the roles of grading and objective exams; and, instead, emphasizing rock-climbing at the student union and things like that.
University presidents pay for themselves by fund-raising from wealthy/stupid alum.
They are scam artists.
Education has stunningly little to do with their job.