The College Fix

OPINION: Sasse is in a tough position, but it is unjust for him to make the same salary for less work

Ben Sasse should forfeit part of his $1 million salary that is guaranteed for the next four years.

Sasse, who is leaving the president job at the University of Florida, will reportedly continue to get paid at the same level, despite a decrease in responsibilities.

He announced in July he would resign as president to help his wife who is struggling with epilepsy and memory issues. He also has a 13-year-old son.

MyPanhandle.com reported his salary will remain at $1 million until at least 2028 due to his ongoing teaching and advising jobs.

It would be appropriate, and advisable, for Sasse to forfeit part of his salary. He is no longer going to work the same job he was hired for, and presumably, will work fewer hours than he was as president. It is for a good reason, as he is putting his family first.

But the university will need to hire another president to replace him, who will demand a comparable salary.

It is not necessarily unreasonable for Sasse to get paid $1 million to run the university full-time. The school has more than 30,000 employees with a revenue of nearly $4 billion, according to public data. Roku and Frontier Airlines, by comparison, have less annual revenue than the public Gainesvill university, according to CompaniesMarketCap.

However, Sasse is no longer running the university. His other duties presumably will allow him to qualify for the health insurance he needs for his family.

In other words, his family will not be destitute if it reduces his salary. Some UF professors make in the $200,000 to $300,000 range, according to Open the Books data.

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This would certainly be more appropriate than $1 million. This amount is also more than his annual Senate salary of $174,000.

Sasse also has other opportunities to make money writing or speaking – he received a $600,000 advance for just one of his books, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Voluntarily reducing his salary would also be a good move for the image Sasse has worked hard to cultivate as a mild-mannered, prudent politician. He gained some prominence for his book about political tribalism and civil society. He also established himself as a prominent critic of President Donald Trump’s character.

“I’m just sad for him as a human because obviously there’s a lot of complicated stuff going on in that soul,” Sasse told the World-Herald in 2023. “Just at a human level, I’m sad for him to be that needy and desperate. But at a policy level, I always loved that he kept his word on the judges. … And so we got to work closely on judges.”

Justice and charity would demand we presume Sasse’s criticism of Trump was genuine (even if some might disagree with it).

Now is the time for Sasse to prove he is not just another politician, raking in money on the taxpayer dime for doing less work.

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IMAGE: University of Florida

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