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A.

I think it's less about the amount any one person is paid and more about the huge number of administrators moving paper from one desk to another.

I went to a private liberal arts college with a few thousand students. We had a Dean and four assistant Deans, all of whom made multiple six figures a year. Our president when I was there made $450k/yr and had next to no living expenses.

B.

Private v. public has nothing to do with academic bloat.

Exactly this! I attended a major southern public university and the administrative overhead there was immense. Not only that, you had high placed administrators who "retired" only to immediately return as high dollar consultants. Whole thing stinks.

Closely followed by an army of "Deans of Diversity and Inclusion" and others like that, at around $400K/year.

I too live in Michigan. Dantonio's salary is ridiculous.

Jim Harbaugh makes even more.

But Big 10 football (and basketball) runs at a profit for the schools, it's the big salaries at smaller sports programs that don't make financial sense.