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Saturday, April 14, 2007
Loan ShillsWalter Massey, president of Morehouse College, got $649,692 in pay and stock in 2006 for serving on Bank of America Corp.'s board. ... Massey has been a director of the Charlotte, North Carolina- based bank since 1998. His pay from Morehouse in fiscal 2005, the most recent information available, was less than his Bank of America compensation last year. Massey received $382,895 from the school, consisting of $278,847 in "compensation," $60,848 in contributions to employee benefit plans and $43,200 in expense account and other allowances, according to Morehouse's Internal Revenue Service filing. Step away from these numbers and consider what they mean. This man is not really a university president. He sells student loans. He's one of several university administrators across the country who, according to Bloomberg.com, "serve on boards at nine of the largest publicly traded student-loan companies." Quite a few of these people, like Massey, are so fond of the banks that enrich them for warming a seat that they recommend their banks to their students. At Morehouse, Bank of America "was chosen as an approved lender in a new ... loan program... [It] has since been dropped." Like a hot potato. Now that the SEC is watching. The paid positions were disclosed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The documents show that college officials hold board seats at financial institutions in an industry that lends $85 billion a year to students and parents. |