This University has a history of spending enormous sums of money on its faculty, administrators and athletic coaches, but this is not breaking news to anyone. But on the day that The Daily Illini issues its yearly publication of the Salary Guide, these numbers cannot be forgotten or ignored.

The University is currently paying $7.12 million to have three coaches not coach at Illinois. Former men’s basketball coach Bruce Weber will receive $1.3 million a year to coach at Kansas State University. We are finishing out Ron Zook’s contract of $2.6 million over the two years since he was fired in December as he works for CBS Sports as a college football studio analyst. Jolette Law was hired at Tennessee, one of the winningest programs in the nation, as an assistant coach for the women’s basketball team. Law is being paid a mere 25 percent of what Zook will earn, but that is still a whopping $620,000 over the two years after her firing in March. 

When current men’s basketball coach John Groce came from Ohio University, which advanced to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament in 2012 — a tournament Illinois did not qualify for — he earned a base salary of $300,000, reported The Chicago Tribune in March. At Illinois, he earns $1.4 million, almost five times what he made before.

Head football coach Tim Beckman has signed a five-year contract with the University, and according to The USA Today’s College Football Coach salary database, he made $409,000 at the University of Toledo.

These extraordinary numbers are the result of coaches’ absolute values, or their worth determined by their success but are also unfortunately the result of their relative value, or their worth in terms of the scarce few who are qualified to hold such positions — their supply and demand market value. 

Although these astronomical salaries do not come from state or direct University support, they help encourage a culture of high-spending. Arguably, there is a fine line of spending too much money on an administration, which has more than proven itself to be incapable of leading this school and spending enough money to maintain a world class faculty — the heart and backbone of this University, in tandem with a highly qualified student body.

Thankfully, we have people like President Robert Easter, who came out of retirement to serve this University at a salary $200,000 less than former President Michael Hogan. In fact, Easter makes $50,000 less a year than vice-president Phyllis Wise. Easter’s salary — and the salary of former President Stanley O. Ikenberry who also came out of retirement when the University needed him — although still high, show a certain degree of care for the well-being of this University: It meant more to be there to help this school than it did to make more money. 

This year, the University spent $1.49 billion on salaries for all faculty and administration, but we fear that number may continue to senselessly rise at the detriment of this school.

And you’ll find all these numbers inside the salary guide. 

What we can only hope from this guide is that students, taxpayers, politicians, administration and alumni hold this University accountable. This school is more to all of us than a series of complex numbers listed out in a 16-page guide and database. It is an institution that has served us with some of the greatest opportunities afforded to the modern student and provided us with four great years of memories. 

We can’t let a culture of excessive spending tarnish that.