U-M shrinks pay for Dearborn, Flint chancellors as it doubles it in Ann Arbor

U-M Dearborn Chancellor Gabriella Scarlatta became the permanent leader of the campus in May with a base pay that is 22% less than her predecessor
U-M Flint Chancellor Laurence Alexander joined U-M two years ago with a base pay about 9% less than his predecessor
Critics say the pattern may suggest that U-M values its regional leaders less than the Ann Arbor president

The University of Michigan has doubled the pay of its presidents in recent years, but reversed the trend at its regional campuses.

While U-M ‘s presidential base salaries have increased from $927,000 under Mark Schlissel in 2021 to $2 million awarded this year to a candidate who later stepped aside, documents obtained by Bridge Michigan through public records requests show new chancellors at Dearborn and Flint are making less than their predecessors.

U-M Dearborn Chancellor Gabriella Scarlatta, whom the regents appointed in May, has a $500,000 annual base pay, with a “total target compensation” of $600,000, according to her five-year contract. Her base pay is 22% less than the $642,020 salary that former U-M Dearborn Chancellor Domenico Grasso was earning when he moved to the Ann Arbor campus a year ago to be interim president following the departure of Santa Ono.

Grasso more than doubled his annual base salary to $1.3 million when he began leading the Ann Arbor campus in May 2025, and tripled his earnings with other compensation. In January, U-M introduced Syracuse University President Kent Syverud as its next president with a base salary of $2 million, 53% higher than Grasso’s base pay. Syverud stepped aside for health reasons before taking office.

A similar salary pattern to Scarlatta’s unfolded at U-M Flint two years earlier.

woman in sunglasses speaks outdoorss from a podium with a U-M Dearborn sign behind her — U-M Dearborn Chancellor Gabriella Scarlatta speaks at a campus event in Dearborn in August 2025. (Josh Boland/Bridge Michigan)

Former U-M Flint Chancellor Debasish Dutta left for another position in September 2023 after he’d been reappointed 11 months earlier with a $469,000 base salary. His successor, Laurence Alexander, landed a five-year employment agreement in July 2024 with a base salary about 9% lower, at $425,000, along with a “total target compensation” of $560,000.

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Dutta departed with a $700,000 lump sum payout as a result of a provision in his contract. But Alexander’s contract, which Bridge obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, does not include the same severance provision.

U-M demands that people seeking a copy of an official’s employment contract file a FOIA request. It took the university four weeks to release Scarlatta’s contract to Bridge Michigan – which is the maximum time allowed for a public body to respond under state law. U-M’s previous release of other presidential contracts followed similar timelines.

Job, campus comparisons

U-M Dearborn and Flint enrolled 8,005 and 7,119 students, respectively, in fall 2025, a fraction of the 53,488 students enrolled on the Ann Arbor campus. Additionally, U-M Ann Arbor oversees one of the largest research portfolios in the nation, exceeding $2 billion, and operates a major medical center which includes 12 hospitals and hundreds of clinics across the state.

Even so, the lower starting salaries for Scarlatta and Alexander “may be about how the University of Michigan values leadership at its regional campuses,” said James Finkelstein, a George Mason University professor emeritus who studies university presidential contracts.

“University of Michigan appears to be treating leadership compensation at its regional campuses differently from that in Ann Arbor,” said Finkelstein.

Not true, said U-M Regent Michael Behm. Scarlatta and Alexander’s starting salaries were less than their predecessors “because they’re just starting in the job,” said Behm, board chair.

Man gestures at a board meeting table — 2026-27 U-M Board of Regents Chair Michael Behm. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

Scarlatta served as U-M Dearborn’s provost from 2022-2025; Alexander joined U-M after 11 years as chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. The chancellors’ job descriptions did not include a salary range, officials said.

Regents offered a $2 million base salary to Syverud because of his tenure as president in much larger institutions, Regent Paul Brown said.

“My philosophy is you pay people as little as you possibly can while still being able to get the best people for the job,” Brown said.

U-M Board of Regents Trustee Paul Brown (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

But Finkelstein said that executive compensation in higher education “is typically tied to the position, not the person.”

“Under that logic, the UM-Dearborn chancellorship should be worth roughly the same in 2026 as in (2025),” Finkelstein said. “The campus has not shrunk. The budget has not been cut in half. The mission has not changed. The responsibilities have not diminished. If anything, the demands placed on university leaders have increased. That raises an obvious question: if the job is fundamentally the same, why is the compensation attached to it apparently declining?”

After the U-M regents meeting last week, Alexander said he “didn’t know” that his starting base salary two years ago was lower than his predecessor’s. But he has made it a practice to not comment on his salary.

“It is what it is,” said Alexander, who reported during the regents meeting that Flint enrollment has had the greatest enrollment growth among Michigan public universities over the past two years.

Alexander has had one merit pay increase since he began his post,, according to U-M spokesperson Paul Corliss. His current base is $437,750.

man at head of a board table — University of Michigan President Domenico Grasso gives his opening remarks during the Board of Regents meeting in the Alexander G. Ruthven Building on U-M’s Ann Arbor campus on Thursday, June 25, 2026. (Ella Miller/Bridge Michigan)

Corliss also noted that when Grasso became U-M Dearborn’s chancellor in 2018, his starting salary was $425,000. In today’s dollars, that is $574,612, which is higher than Scarlatta’s base pay.

Scarlatta declined comment through a spokesperson.

A study by Finkelstein and George Mason professor Judith Wilde found that salaries for presidents at flagship universities rose nearly 32% from 2009 to 2019 — from an average of $543,000 to $715,000. The base salary of presidents at five flagship universities increased by more than 50%.

“The jump in presidential salaries has only continued to increase,” Wilde said. “In some ways I salute U-M for maintaining lower salaries. On the other hand, it does not seem appropriate to bring in a president with a lower salary than his/her predecessor …I could interpret these lower salaries as indicating that they are paying for the person, not the position, and consider these individuals to be less important than their flagship president.”

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