Around New England

As Mount Ida’s Debt Increased, So Did Its Executives’ Pay

April 18, 2018

Pay and other compensation for Mount Ida College’s president and other executives increased while its increasing debt load threatened to drive it out of business.

The board of trustees of the small college in Newton kept approving significant increases in salary for president Barry Brown and other leading officials during the last few years leading up to the college’s decision to close and sell the campus to the University of Massachusetts, according to the Boston Business Journal.

Brown made $446,000 in 2016, including $390,082 in base salary, the Boston Business Journal reported. The total compensation that year was up from $406,000 in 2014. Debt increased from $58 million to $68 million between 2014 and 2016, states the Boston Business Journal, citing documents the college was required to file with the federal government.

Mount Ida officials say the college executives were paid in line with the median offered to executives at comparable colleges.

The small liberal arts college has its roots in a private high school for girls founded in 1899. It is scheduled to go out of business at the end of the school year. Students have been offered admission to the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.


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