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This revelation of wretched excess was spun up by a little eyebrow-raiser of a news story recently that noted that Kurt Landgraf, late of the DuPont Co., had been paid $800,000 for his first 10 months of work for the Educational Testing Service, of SAT fame. He also paid six-figure bonuses to 15 ETS officers. This, the story implied, was rather shocking because nonprofit education services tend to pay more like colleges and universities.

This is disgusting. All the costs of ETS's services accrue to students during high school, when there's no financial aid to pay for it. Excessive pay levels at ETS will end up being a burden to working class families that have to pay the fees to take the SAT. This is stupid. Running ETS is not like running a real company. They should hire some schmuck who just got his MPA from an unheard of school in the Midwest. He would just as easily be able to run the company, which has guaranteed customer base every year.

OTOH, what people fail to realize is that most of the college presidents you see making Wall Street level incomes have Wall Street level fundraising experience. They effectively cost the schools nothing, as they will bring in more money from alumni/industry/govt research grants than they get paid every year. That is really the only reason you would need someone with much talent to perform what would otherwise by a mostly symbolic job.

Here's a fun exercise. Take the actual cost of earning a degree, including deferred income, housing expenses, food, books etc. in addition to the cost of enrolling in the university of your choice. Now compare that expense to the anticipated increase in income you will realize from having your degree. Be sure to take into account your reduced earning ability early in your career because of "lack of experience", and reduced earnings later in your career due to H1-B competition and age discrimination.

After you've run the numbers then you can decide what trade school you plan to enroll in.