President Ronald Berkman’s current address at The 9 runs $3,600 a month for a two-bedroom unit. In addition to rent, Cleveland State University also hired an interior decorator for the unit for $6,000 prior to moving in. The expenditures proved costlier than expected after adding parking fees for guests, food orders, and space large enough to cater to large groups.
Prior to Berkman’s stay at the 9, which has lasted about a year and a half, he lived in a four-bedroom joint in Shaker Heights.
Via Karen Farkas at Cleveland.com’s report:
The university’s foundation had bought a four-bedroom, Georgian-style house in Shaker Heights in June 2009 for $808,000 and leased it to the university.The university invested a total of more than $1.2 million in the house, in addition to paying the foundation about $80,000 a year to cover the lease and about $24,000 in property taxes.
The foundation sold the house for $808,000.
No word yet on where Berkman will be living next.
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2016.
this has to be a joke. how can the university pay for it? Doesn’t he make a salary on top of this?
Colleges have become corporations. Number one objective is to make money. They astronomically raise tuition rates since students are backed by federal loan money. Leaves boat loads of money for university “foundations” while graduates leave crippled with debt. Modern day debt serfdom
It is the ultimate – and legal – Ponzi scheme. Bernie Madoff should have played it straight and become a highfalutin college president.
As a CSU alumni and current graduate student, I don’t see what the big deal is. CSU has some of the lowest tuition rates in the state and I personally have been able to work hard, save my money, and avoid taking out loans despite paying for it myself. So if some of my already low tuition goes towards the presidents new pad, then so be it. It’s like the new health professions building they just built. I will never use that either.
CSU tuition is cheap by comparison to other universities, but it still seems unnecessarily expensive.
The tuition may in fact be one of the cheapest but this is totally unnecessary. While students like me are still struggling to pay it and hold down full time job,family,and kids. Just so that they can have a better life after graduation and hopefully find a job to pay back on all the loans we had to take out to survive and pursue our dreams.Way too much and totally unnecessary is all I’m saying 2 different places in less than 10 yrs, really wow. What a waste.
I don’t get why this is a big deal. Universities are not only learning institutions but businesses also. If the university feels like he is not worth it then find someone else otherwise pay-up.
If he does the job, he deserves the perks. I have no idea how he’s doing, but CSU has been growing like a weed, and either they do a bad job presenting the results, or they don’t want to.
This, my friends, is why your tuition is so high.
Look, I understand about perks and all that, but there comes a point when spending gets excessive and out of control. When that happens, and there is a lot of waste, it’s very hard to listen to a university say how they have to raise tuition costs. It’s a horrible system for students – look how much student debt is in the country right now, and then check the recent profits for these universities, textbook companies, etc, etc. They are laughing all the way to the bank, and we get to pay off loans for how many years instead of being able to get into houses.