Today’s Los Angeles Times brings us some fresh perspective on the decision to offer inflated salaries to the new presidents of San Diego State and Cal Poly SLO. Why the pay increases?

Cal State officials have pointed to a compensation study, commissioned by the university, which that found its campus presidents receive about 52% of the salary of their peers at public and private comparison institutions such as Arizona State University, Rutgers, the University of Connecticut and Tufts.

But the March survey, conducted by the consulting firm Mercer at a cost of $194,000, also found that Cal State offers far better health and retirement benefits than most of the other systems, reducing the gap to about 26%.

A consulting firm was paid $194,000 to conduct this study? Seriously? The extensive CSU bureaucracy could not do this study? Might they have paid a few thousand dollars to a talented faculty member to conduct this study? Did it really take $200,000 to reach this conclusion?

Excuse me if I do not feel to sorry for our CSU presidents. According to my study–which I just accomplished in about 45 seconds–our faculty are underpaid by 20% compared to those same universities, almost the same as the CSU presidents. I’ll be waiting for my check from the CSU for my consulting. You have my address, but if you’d like to direct deposit that’s OK with me.