--- title: KSU President Cuts $90K from Salary to Pay Employees Living Wage description: An interim university president decided to forego $90,000 of his salary so that the school's lowest-paid employees could earn a living wage. canonical: https://time.com/3083210/university-president-living-wage/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-05T20:01:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:11.925Z article:section: U.S. og:title: KSU President Cuts $90K from Salary to Pay Employees Living Wage og:description: "This is not a publicity stunt" og:url: https://time.com/3083210/university-president-living-wage/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: KSU President Cuts $90K from Salary to Pay Employees Living Wage twitter:description: "This is not a publicity stunt" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # University President Cuts $90K From Salary So Campus Employees Can Make Living Wage by [Laura Stampler](/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Aug 5, 2014 8:01 PM CUT by [Laura Stampler](/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Aug 5, 2014 8:01 PM CUT An interim university president decided to forego $90,000 of his salary so that his school’s lowest-paid employees could earn a living wage. Raymond Burse, who’s been Kentucky State University’s sitting president for 12 months while its board looks for a successor, wasn’t pleased to hear that some of the college’s workers were earning a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, even though [many consider $10.25 as a living wage](http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/18/3079721/minimum-wage-poll-1025/ "undefined"). Burse had served as president of KSU from 1982-89, and then was a top executive at General Electric for 27 years. [He told Kentucky.com](http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/01/3361549/ksu-presidents-gives-up-90000.html "undefined") that his decision to forego some of his typically-$349,869 salary wasn’t a difficult decision. “My whole thing is I don’t need to work,” Burse said. “This is not a hobby, but in terms of the people who do the hard work and heavy lifting, they are at the lower pay scale.” Burse will now be paid $259,745 for the year. “This is not a publicity stunt,” he said. “You don’t give up $90,000 for publicity. I did this for the people.” \[[_Kentucky.com_](http://www.kentucky.com/2014/08/01/3361549/ksu-presidents-gives-up-90000.html "undefined")\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3083210/university-president-living-wage/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3083210/university-president-living-wage/"},"headline":"University President Cuts $90K From Salary So Campus Employees Can Make Living Wage","datePublished":"2014-08-05T20:01:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:11.925Z","description":"\"This is not a publicity stunt\"","url":"https://time.com/3083210/university-president-living-wage/","keywords":["Education","Newsfeed","Living","Kentucky"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/education/","name":"Education"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3083210/university-president-living-wage/","name":"University President Cuts $90K From Salary So Campus Employees Can Make Living Wage"}}]}] ```