All who attend Suffolk understand the fact that our university doesn’t hold the prestige of some of New England’s other private universities, but that doesn’t stop the president of our university, David Sargent, from being the second highest paid president in the United States. Suffolk is financially struggling and has not displayed a significant amount of continued academic achievement and improvement to justify his salary.

Sargent has no doubt given Suffolk years of his service, but our educational standards are falling behind as the debt expands. The educational standards of this university are reflected in its admissions. Almost 85 percent of all undergraduate applicants are accepted. If this university wishes to compete with more elite universities, then shouldn’t it be more particular when choosing its students?

Fees and tuition fuel this university; these sources of income are relied on to keep Suffolk in existence. If the president of this university continues to be paid the way he is, we may not have a university anymore at all.  His compensation in 2007 was roughly equal to 103 undergraduate students’ tuition this year.

Alumni are also apprehensive about Sargent’s ability to help Suffolk evolve and mature.  Out of only 7 percent of alumni who donate, some have stopped because of this controversy.

“I get angry when I’m standing in line at the grocery store and I see the rankings and we’re like a third-tier university,” said Dennis Fernandez, a Suffolk trustee who was quoted in the Boston Globe’s article “Suffolk’s next challenge”. “It’s the shell they have built out, but have they generated any leading content? I see no Nobel prizes over there.” He also stated that he would like to see Suffolk become a “thought leader.”

The solution doesn’t lie with the end of Sargent’s reign. Our university needs to expand its educational goals and strive towards them. More quality professors need to be hired and the standards of undergraduate admissions should be raised. Sargent’s salary would not be such a problem if the caliber of education here was as high as his pay. Sometimes however, new ideas need new people.