Utah State President Cantwell spent $660K on new cars, SLC apartment, office bidet and more, records show

When she was hired as president of Utah State University, Elizabeth “Betsy” Cantwell signed a contract to receive an annual salary of $581,585.

During her brief tenure, she spent at least another $661,800 in university funds — on new cars, an apartment in Salt Lake City, extensive national travel and lavish furnishings, including a $750 bidet for her office.

Receipts obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through public records requests show a pattern of big spending by Cantwell and little oversight. The Tribune looked at more than 500 pages of records documenting hundreds of approved buys by the president throughout her roughly 18-month tenure — one of the shortest in recent state history. None of them appear to have been flagged or questioned.

The purchases continued through Cantwell’s final days in the position, including several items for a major office remodel dated Jan. 31. She announced Feb. 6 that she intended to leave and stepped down to serve as president of Washington State University at the end of March.

Her office renovation ultimately totaled nearly $245,900, with $184,400 of that spent on furniture, including one “executive chair” that cost $3,000. Cantwell spent less than two months in the finished space.

She also used university funds to purchase a new $43,000 SUV, as well as a $300 suit for the USU police officer who served as her driver. And the school paid for a top-of-the-line $28,000 golf cart so she could get back and forth across the Logan campus in the comfort of heating or air conditioning.

State Auditor Tina Cannon, whose government office annually reviews each university’s budget only on a big-picture level to look for deficits, called the specific expenses “shocking,” particularly in this period of expected austerity.

The state’s eight public colleges and universities have been under scrutiny by Utah leaders for “administrative bloat.” Cantwell’s trail of receipts comes as the Legislature this year mandated multimillion-dollar budget cuts.

Utah State’s share is $12.6 million. Cantwell’s spending and salary alone — not counting another $233,000 she was receiving in benefits — accounts for about 10% of the total, records indicate.

The school is currently asking employees for voluntary resignations and retirements as part of its plan to address the reductions. Layoffs are anticipated after that.

Cantwell did not return a call from The Tribune for comment on this story. Through a USU spokesperson, she declined to speak and said she was busy “getting ready for her next position.”

Her new school also declined to comment on whether her documented spending raised any concerns about her hire. A spokesperson said because Washington State does not have “first-hand knowledge” of the situation, “we do not have anything we can add to your story.”

The Tribune reached out to all 10 professional members of USU’s board of trustees — which, as a group, is responsible for overseeing the school’s finances and auditing all spending. Initially, only two answered.

Clark Whitworth said he didn’t want to avoid responding but wasn’t well-informed about Cantwell’s expenditures. “Right now, there’s not anything I have to say about it,” he said.

Tessa White said in an email that the board wanted to respond as a full body “rather than each individually.”

Later, Jacey Skinner, the board’s chair, provided a statement on behalf of the trustees. She said in an email that the board “does ensure that proper compliance processes and controls are in place for expenditures in all departments within the university, this includes the president’s expenditures.”

Some of the one-time expenditures by the president, she said, were “normal,” because Cantwell was new to the job. But Skinner also noted that the board “does not approve day-to-day operational expenditures.”

“In light of current budget evaluations, the reallocation process and other efforts of the board, we are currently reviewing our policies across the university in this and other areas,” Skinner said.

There are few existing policies at the school that deal with a president’s spending. A USU spokesperson pointed, instead, to Utah System of Higher Education rules; those only exist, though, for presidential travel and housing allowances. Other spending isn’t regulated or capped.

And there are no state laws specifically on the subject.

It makes for a hodgepodge system without substantial checks for the highest office at a public school in Utah.

The Tribune ran some of the numbers on Cantwell’s expenditures by two national experts, James Finkelstein and Judith Wilde, longtime partners renowned for their work at George Mason University researching presidential compensation and contracts. Together, they have reviewed similar cases of extravagant spending by Western New Mexico University’s recently ousted school president and former University of Florida President Ben Sasse.

Finkelstein said he was troubled by Cantwell’s expenses at USU, including the bidet, which he said the president could have afforded “out of her own pocket” based on her salary. It’s part of a growing trend of university presidents getting perks more in line with running a corporation than a public school, he added.

Wilde calls it the “CEO-ization” of schools.

“The leadership suite of universities is beginning to look now more like a C-suite,” added Finkelstein. “Where are the financial controls in the Utah system that allowed something like this to happen? … Why are taxpayers buying a bidet toilet seat for her office?”

Cantwell’s biggest purchases: 3 new cars

The Tribune requested itemized records across several expense categories to try to capture a full picture of Cantwell’s spending.

That included receipts for travel, office renovations, furniture, upgrades to the on-campus presidential residence, new cars, fuel logs, housing rentals and purchasing card (or P-card) records throughout her tenure, which started Aug. 1, 2023.

It also included security spending and a flashy investiture ceremony after Cantwell first took office, when an outside consulting company charged USU $1,000 to write her speech.

USU charged The Tribune $265 to produce the records. A few requests regarding Cantwell’s discretionary-fund spending remain outstanding, but nearly all others were provided.

Those show the largest single purchases recorded were Cantwell’s new cars. Overall, Cantwell had three university vehicles, all bought specifically for her to use.

University presidents in Utah are allowed to have their schools purchase them a car, according to state higher education system policy, as long as any personal trips are separately logged and taxed. Presidents who opt to use their own car can be reimbursed for mileage. But that’s all the policy states.

Under USU rules, there is no cap set for how much a president can spend on a new car, what cars qualify or how many cars they can get.

Just a few months into her term, the school first bought Cantwell a new 2023 Toyota Highlander SUV to drive. It cost $42,969, according to the receipt. She used it both as a personal and a work car.

When asked if a cheaper, older or used model was considered, school spokesperson Amanda DeRito said it is USU’s “standard practice” when buying cars to purchase new vehicles. The school has an existing fleet of 784 cars.

DeRito said Cantwell also purchased the Toyota back from the school “at fair-market value” when she left, but declined to provide the exact price. That is not unusual; the USU president before her, Noelle Cockett, did the same with the vehicle she used, which was a Ford Fusion; that car is about $25,000 new.

With 30 statewide locations under the land-grant institution’s umbrella, DeRito said, “Cantwell needed a reliable car for all weather for traveling to meetings in SLC and around the state.” That’s why the school went with the SUV.

The school also bought a new Chevy Suburban for Cantwell to use specifically for when the USU police officer, acting as both chauffeur and security, drove her to events around the state. Utah State didn’t provide a receipt for that, but those typically run about $60,000 new.

DeRito said Cantwell “preferred to have a driver when commuting to Salt Lake City or other statewide campuses so that she could safely work and take calls. She often had other passengers travel with her as well. This saved the president hours to focus on work instead of driving.”

The provided fuel logs indicate a roughly even split between how often Cantwell got gas for her Toyota and how often the Chevy appeared to be refueled. USU said its assigned driver was called on “a few times each week depending on the president’s schedule.” The officer also had other assignments in the campus police department.

The $300 suit the school purchased for the driver came from Mr. Mac, a local men’s clothing shop, receipts show. He wore it when he drove Cantwell to “more formal events,” where he also provided security; DeRito said it was to help him “blend in.”

The third car Cantwell had access to was a specialty $28,300 golf cart she rode around Logan’s campus. That was purchased new one month into her term.

The model chosen was an electric, road-safe, four-seater from Polaris. While the school already owns other golf carts assigned to various departments, DeRito said the new one was necessary to accommodate the president’s busy campus meeting schedule.

“The Logan campus is 600 acres,” DeRito said, “and it can take 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Due to limitations on roadways through campus and limited parking, driving can be inconvenient and limiting.”

The Tribune requested and received fuel receipts for the vehicles. Those totaled more than $5,300 in gas charges. There was also a $1,200 car rental from October 2023; DeRito said the rental was with USU’s motor pool, but she didn’t know why Cantwell needed a separate car at the time.

Initially, the school redacted much of the logs. In total, there were 121 entries, with 43 blacked out.

The school said it “re-evaluated” the redactions and later provided an updated record, which included $1,500 in gas purchases that were originally blacked out because they were paid with another employee’s gas card.

Cannon, the state auditor, said she’s frustrated those were redacted to begin with.

“When you are spending taxpayer money, you should be completely open and transparent with what it’s being spent on and why it’s being spent that way,” she said. “That’s what you owe to a taxpayer, to a student paying tuition.”

A separate document logging Cantwell’s miles on the SUV shows about 3,000 — or a quarter — were for personal use.

Overall, she spent more than $137,000 in university funds related to cars and driving.

Cantwell’s extensive travel: 48 trips across Utah and U.S.

Rules for presidential travel in Utah are equally indeterminate.

Utah System of Higher Education policy requires that a university’s board of trustees annually analyze the purpose of — and receipts from — any out-of-state trips their leader takes; school trustees are then supposed to compile that in an audit for USHE to review.

Geoff Landward, the commissioner over the system, said if any anomalies stand out, he works with schools to address it.

But there are no caps provided for how many trips a president can take or how much they can spend — or even a definition of acceptable business purposes. And the state system doesn’t review in-state travel for any kind of compliance.

Cantwell seemed to follow USU policy on airfare and meal reimbursement, according to copies of her receipts. But employees still have to get trip approval from their manager, and the records don’t note whether Cantwell got any trips approved before leaving, and if so, with whom. Skinner’s statement said trustees aren’t managing day-to-day spending.

In one instance, USU paid for Cantwell to go to a Utah Jazz basketball game in January 2024 before she headed to Las Vegas for a school basketball tournament. The $1,083 in costs were rubber-stamped by the university’s trustees after the fact.

The Tribune reviewed the only audit from Utah State on Cantwell’s out-of-state travel, covering July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024; later trips won’t be captured until a separate audit publishes at the end of this year.

That first audit noted 12 national trips, including an $11,400 visit to Harvard University for a 2023 seminar on how to be a new president and four separate trips to Washington, D.C. It reported no violations and called the travel “customary and reasonable.”

Outside of that audit, The Tribune did its own review, requesting all records for travel throughout Cantwell’s tenure and any associated reimbursements. There were more than 400 pages of receipts.

In total, Cantwell spent just under $80,000 on travel during her time in office. The documents account for 49 trips total, including her initial visit to USU in May 2023, when she was a candidate for the president job. The school covered $2,800, including expenses for Cantwell’s husband to join.

The majority of the trips — 25 — were out of state. Another was to Ireland, her only international stay. She spent a total of 141 days traveling; that’s about 23% of the total days Cantwell was in office, including weekends.

Cantwell came to USU from the University of Arizona, where she was senior vice president of research and innovation. This was her first time being a president. USHE has said it would like to provide more training and support for new leaders so they don’t leave so early into their positions; it will start covering up to $20,000 in those costs for each president’s first year.

But even with expensive training, including the Harvard seminar, Cantwell stepped down less than two years into the role.

Overall, her biggest travel expenses were on conference registration costs. She twice went to the annual gathering for the Association of Public Land-Grant Universities. The event ticket for the first one, in November 2023 and held in Seattle, was $749. Registration jumped to $1,050 for the next one, held in Orlando last November.

Similarly, she twice went to the annual dinner for the Council on Competitiveness, a nonprofit group focused on economics. The ticket to attend the first was $1,500. The second year was $1,600. That’s not counting airfare and rooms. Both were held in Washington, D.C.

Cantwell visited the nation’s capital eight times, overall, as president. The reason for one trip was listed only as “USU meetings.” Another was to attend a book signing for Medhi Haravi, a philanthropist and big-time donor at Utah State.

One D.C. trip had no corresponding airfare receipts. DeRito said that’s because TechSource, a nuclear and engineering consulting group, paid for Cantwell’s roundtrip travel.

Cantwell also went to Las Vegas four times — three times to see USU basketball compete. Once was for a meeting of the National Football Foundation.

She also took a multicity trip to fundraise in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, which included seeing USU football play Temple University in Philadelphia on Sept. 21, 2024. A hotel room for one night on the 5-day trip was $909.

And Cantwell stayed at a spa in Arizona during donor visits there, records indicate.

DeRito said hotel prices often vary by night and destination, but overall: “USU employees are told to use discretion and seek to be judicious in choosing a hotel.”

Cantwell also upgraded most of her flights, according to the receipts, paying more to be able to pick her own seat and fly “comfort” instead of economy. Once, she upgraded from economy to first-class and paid the price difference herself.

On three trips, though — from Denver, San Diego and Philadelphia — she flew back with the school’s football team to be “more cost-effective,” the school noted.

Her most expensive trip was the five-day visit to Ireland. The receipts say Cantwell was asked to be part of a Utah delegation to “research collaboration between University of Galway and Utah universities.” The total cost was $12,790, with airfare making up the bulk of that.

The event, overall, was hosted and organized by the University of Utah, DeRito said. Weber State University administrators were also invited and joined. And it focused on biomedical engineering.

“Collaboration like this is essential for economic growth and development as part of our R1 research in the state of Utah,” DeRito said. “R1″ is a national classification that indicates an institution spends at least $50 million a year on research.

Devin Wiser, USU’s vice president for government and external affairs, accompanied Cantwell. His costs were not figured into The Tribune’s calculations.

The slim minority of Cantwell’s trips — 23 of the 49 — were around the state, with mostly one- or two-day stops at USU campuses in Tooele, Vernal, Blanding, Moab and Price. Some were to attend monthly meetings of the Utah Board of Higher Education in Salt Lake City or to speak with lawmakers at the Capitol.

During one trip to Salt Lake City, Cantwell ordered $14 in wine, which was removed from her reimbursement as an unallowable expense; state law doesn’t permit alcohol to be covered by taxpayer dollars. DeRito said the president paid for it with her own money.

On another trip, Cantwell was booked for two hotel rooms in Salt Lake City; she stayed in one, but the other was not canceled, meaning $203 was spent on a room she didn’t stay in.

Cantwell, along with a provost she was traveling with, decided to stay at a hotel closer to USU’s Salt Lake City campus, DeRito said; both hotels were owned by Fairfield, but the company declined to refund the extra charge because it was not canceled in time.

One four-day leadership retreat in Park City, with administrators Kerri Davidson and Dave Cowley, cost more than $2,000 for meals and lodging, charged to the president’s office. (Cantwell previously worked with Davidson in Arizona; Cantwell named Davidson USU’s vice president of institutional affairs and her chief of staff.)

Having come from out of state for the job, DeRito said, Cantwell needed to “hit the ground running,” particularly in visiting the school’s different campuses.

“University presidents, especially those running a large land-grant university like Utah State,” the spokesperson added, “are expected to travel a great deal both in-state and out-of-state to visit with statewide campuses, meet donors and alumni, work with elected officials and government officers, and collaborate with industry leaders.”

There are only a handful of transactions that Cantwell made on her P-card, a credit card provided by the university for business expenses. Those were largely travel-related and amounted to $3,585, according to a Tribune review of her receipts. A restriction on P-cards issued by USU is that no single transaction can exceed $4,999.

USU rented Cantwell a Salt Lake City apartment

During the 2024 legislative session, Cantwell made three trips to Salt Lake City to meet with lawmakers.

She spent a total of 10 days in the capital during those visits. The costs associated with that, including hotel rooms, was $2,704.

But for this year’s legislative session, which wrapped in early March, USU took a different approach: The school rented an apartment in Salt Lake City for Cantwell to stay at during the 45-day session.

USU used Vrbo, an online rental company, to book her 46 nights, at $103 each. The total cost was $5,845 — more than double what the school spent the previous year.

Cantwell chose to use the short-term rental, DeRito said, “knowing that there was a great deal of potential legislation that would impact higher education. With the amount of time spent at the Capitol during the session, it is more cost-effective to do a short-term rental than to stay in traditional lodging.”

But this year, Cantwell was only on the formal agenda to speak to the Legislature once, on Jan. 30, to present an annual report to lawmakers about the school.

After reviewing meeting minutes, it doesn’t appear that she testified at any hearing outside of that. She specifically did not comment publicly during any hearings on HB269, a bill that changed what dorms transgender students can live in and stemmed from a conflict at Utah State.

DeRito said Cantwell met with stakeholders, though, and was present for discussions with legislators. And it saved her time driving back and forth from Logan.

Neither the Utah System of Higher Education nor USU have a policy on renting an apartment like this.

But the school’s policy for travel does specifically advise against employees using vacation rental services like Vrbo or Airbnb. It states: “The type of properties offered via Airbnb and similar services vary widely in the type of coverage available for guests. Because of this we do not recommend their use for university business.”

Three of the four trips that records indicate Cantwell made in 2025 also overlapped with the legislative session, accounting for at least seven days that she wasn’t staying at the apartment. Of those, she went to Oakland, California; Las Vegas; and Washington, D.C.

Nearly $300K went toward office upgrades

There are no limitations in either USHE or USU policy for renovations on a presidential office space.

During her tenure, Cantwell spent $245,891 significantly remodeling her office in Utah State’s Champ Hall in Old Main. She also requested office security upgrades, which cost an additional $33,603 — amounting to nearly $300,000 spent on the space.

That’s on top of the $104,800 that receipts show the school spent on generic upgrades and critical repairs to the president’s campus house, including yard work and new paint, none of which Cantwell herself requested, DeRito said. It’s not clear if she was living at the property, which is also used to host community events.

“When or if she used it was up to her, and we are not necessarily aware of her use or track it,” DeRito said.

Office renovations included $184,433 spent on furniture, which DeRito said included desks and cabinets for 10 work stations meant to “increase the capacity in individual offices” for administrators. Most of the pieces, she added, were made of laminate wood.

“Note that commercial office furniture must be durable and may be more expensive than what a person would purchase for their home,” she said.

Most was bought through a company that USU has a contract with to provide discounted pricing. Some of the pieces, though, were bought at the more pricey furniture shops Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn, including a $430 mirror. Most of the chairs purchased, too, were more than $1,000 each.

The purchases also included a $750 bidet from Amazon. DeRito again said the fixtures for a university facility must be commercial grade. But a search online showed some commercial bidets running at around $400.

“The president has a lot of leeway in their spending priorities,” DeRito said specifically about the bidet, “particularly in purchases of this amount.”

The furniture that was previously in the president’s office, she noted, will be repurposed in other campus spaces. The office was last remodeled in 2013.

For security, the school added controls to access doors in the areas near the office, requiring a card to get inside. “Other security measures and improvements were also made, but we prefer not to share those publicly,” DeRito said.

She said security assessments prior to Cantwell’s tenure pointed to a need for the upgrades. But a jump in threats during the president’s time in office also prompted concern.

“Presidents and other university leaders are subject to hostile comments and statements,” DeRito said. “We cannot quantify those comments, but they are occurring at an increasing rate.”

A spendy investiture ceremony

In April 2024 — eight months after she started the job — USU held an investiture ceremony for Cantwell to formally recognize her position.

“The investiture of a new president is one of the most significant markers that shapes the history of a university,” said USU board of trustees Chair Jacey Skinner at the time.

The university ultimately spent more than $54,000 on the big ceremony. Again, there is no cap or institutional policy on costs associated with such events.

The Tribune combed through 73 pages of ceremony receipts. They included specific direction from Cantwell like “ferns only — no florals.” And USU spent more than $4,000 at the president’s request to supply its famous Aggie creamery ice cream to attendees, as well to students at the school’s other Utah campuses to celebrate.

On top of the $1,000 charged to craft and refine Cantwell’s speech, records show mailers, date cards, invitations, flyers and banners also accounted for thousands of dollars.

One line item denoted $14,000 spent on “page markers” — bookmarks given to attendees as a keepsake, DeRito said. And another $3,500 was paid to Silk & Company to upgrade and repair the ceremonial mace the school has long used for such events.

The school covered, too, the cost to bring in a handful of students from campuses statewide to participate. And it covered the expense for one trustee’s travel to be there.

Cantwell’s spending compared to previous president

The school declined to provide numbers to compare between Cantwell’s spending and that of the school’s prior leader, Noelle Cockett.

“I don’t think a fair comparison can be made here,” DeRito said. “Presidents face different challenges, and these two presidents had very different tenures during different times.”

The Tribune looked at USU’s annual budgets, which don’t have an itemized spending breakdown but do show how much the president’s office spends each fiscal year. There was a large bump under Cantwell.

For Cantwell’s first year in the position, which largely lines up with fiscal 2024, the office’s operating budget was $547,330; that doesn’t count salaries.

For the fiscal year before that, under Cockett, the total was $287,330 — about half the spending.

But the school’s spokesperson noted that Cantwell’s budget included $300,000 for the Institute of Land, Water and Air.

Cantwell’s salary was also significantly higher than Cockett’s, who started in January 2017 with a salary of $397,000 (not counting benefits), according to her contract. She ended in July 2023 at just below $512,000.

Cantwell’s starting salary was $581,585. She was also getting $283,800 in benefits. It’s the second-highest salary for a university president in the state, after the University of Utah, where President Taylor Randall makes nearly $1 million in wages, not counting benefits.

Presidential salary rates are set by the Utah System of Higher Education, though they are paid out of a university’s budget. Commissioner Landward said the system decides on a number by looking at peer institutions for each school. It then creates a median salary based on those universities’ salaries, which is what is ultimately paid.

“We want our presidents’ pay to be competitive,” he said. “We’re not going to be the highest paid in the country. We’re also not going to be the lowest.”

The analysis is done each year. USU was designated as a top-tier research institution shortly before Cantwell started, Landward noted, which is why the pay increased for her.

Cantwell also received $25,000 in moving costs. Cockett, who was already living in Utah when she took the helm, did not; Cockett’s contract specifically noted that she did not elect to stay in the presidential residence on campus.

Some of Cantwell’s perks are harder to compare. For instance, she was given access to a discretionary fund — filled through the school’s investment earnings — that she could use without many restrictions.

The university declined to say how much money Cantwell had access to through that fund or how much she used. The Tribune has not yet received any of those receipts.

There is an annual audit required of that; the most recent was short and did not list any violations. But there are not many rules, either. “There is no minimum threshold for the discretionary fund report,” DeRito said.

Cantwell was not given access to any funds from the USU Foundation, though. And the school did not pay for any memberships for her, which is a common presidential perk in other states.

She did have a membership to the Logan Golf and Country Club, but that did not cost USU money because of a lease agreement between the university and the club.

Cantwell was also not given an allowance for spending on clothing.

‘Institutions have become unaccountable’

Cantwell’s spending has prompted frustration from some state leaders, particularly as higher education is faced with major budget cuts.

Commissioner Landward said school presidents are instructed to focus on “mission-critical items” in their purchases. And that’s more important now than ever.

“We always ask our presidents to be judicious about all expenditures, especially when we’re dealing with budget cuts and reallocations,” he added.

Moving forward, he said, he intends to work with USU’s trustees “to assess any concerns that may need a policy solution.”

That would be a major step, given how few existing policies and rules there are for presidential spending — and the limited checks on that.

Under state rules, oversight of a public university president and auditing of a university budget is supposed to fall to the school’s board of trustees. Landward said trustees are entrusted with looking at expenses in detail — and setting policy to make sure money is spent appropriately.

Staff at the system then review each school’s budget annually to make sure schools aren’t operating at a deficit. “We have oversight, just at a much higher level,” Landward said, “not individual expenses.”

The state auditor then reviews that review. “We’re the auditor of last resort,” said Cannon. “We are limited in an annual financial report in the depth that we can go.”

Cannon’s office would intervene only if it received an accusation of fraud or a spending violation, which can be submitted at the auditor’s website: auditor.utah.gov/hotline.

Each school has in-house auditors, who are supposed to work with trustees to review spending.

But the bylaws for USU’s trustees give few specifics on when and how they must monitor presidential expenditures. One provision mentions their obligation to “oversee and monitor budget and finance administration, including internal accounting and operating controls, use of discretionary funds, debt policy, and auxiliary services.”

That work is then assigned to the trustees’ Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee. The committee is supposed to meet at least three times a year, in part to “review the institution’s financial statements, including significant accounting and reporting issues.”

They only have to report back to the full board of trustees once a year, though, and the bylaws doesn’t specify about what.

Finkelstein and Wilde, the scholars who study university leaders’ pay, said Utah’s schools are not following best practice for presidential spending. Both have also been university administrators themselves.

“Where were the trustees in this?” Finkelstein asked. “The issue here is boards are not doing their job. These institutions have become unaccountable.”

He said expenditures by the president should be reported to the board on a monthly or quarterly basis. And all expenses over a certain amount should be approved by the trustees prior to being charged. That would put in a check for big purchases.

And since trustee meetings are public, spending details would be more public, too.

Wilde added that more schools are moving to that model after Ben Sasse’s exorbitant spending at the University of Florida came to light last year. More presidents’ contracts, she said, are also now explicitly stating that board permission is required for major buys.

Part of the problem is that members of a school’s board of trustees are often university donors and work for high-profile companies themselves, both Wilde and Finkelstein said; sometimes, that means they lose perspective.

“They’re used to seeing their executives with a high pay, so of course it doesn’t really bother them to see a president who gets high pay,” Wilde said.

At USU, the board’s chair works for a law firm. And at least four other trustees are major names in Utah business.

But at the end of the day, Finkelstein says, university presidents are public officials — no different than the governor or a transportation secretary. And they’re often getting paid far more.

Cantwell, for instance, was making three times more than Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, whose salary is $183,237, according to Utah’s transparent government pay website.

Public university president salaries, Finkelstein and Wilde have found, also saw an “astronomical” increase from 2009 to 2019. Professors, meanwhile, did not.

And most university presidents — about 85%, they’ve documented — come from academia.

“That means they all started out as first-year assistant professors, and they had nothing,” Finkelstein said. “Somehow, as they make this transition and move up the administrative ladder, some develop a sense of entitlement.”

He’s seen perks include a president getting a fully stocked wine cellar, with another being allowed to hire a personal chef. One got to use school staff to do his family’s laundry.

The chancellor over Connecticut’s largest public college system, for instance, came under fire last year for having the university pay for a chauffeur, a new car and expensive steak dinners.

Would more evaluations solve the problem?

Cantwell’s leadership was marked by chaos almost as soon as it started.

She drew the most attention when she made the unpopular decision to fire former football coach Blake Anderson in July 2024. And under her, the U.S. Department of Justice — which since 2020 had been monitoring how the school responds to reports of sexual assault — extended its oversight, in part due to “substantial noncompliance” last fall. (That has since been resolved as of earlier this year.)

The transgender dorm bill this year came after the anti-diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measure legislators passed the year prior, which led USU to disband its Inclusion Center under Cantwell that served marginalized student populations.

DeRito alluded to those pressures when she said the “role of a university president is demanding and comes with high expectations from both internal and external stakeholders.” And it’s what she pointed to as explanation for Cantwell’s spending.

“For this reason, presidents are provided reasonable discretion to establish the resources and support systems they need to be successful,” DeRito noted.

Even before the spending concerns, though, Utah lawmakers expressed disappointment in Cantwell’s leadership. Sen. Chris Wilson, a Republican who represents Logan and whose district includes the university, passed a law this session to make the hiring process for university presidents more secretive, which he hopes will attract better candidates.

He has previously described the search for Cantwell as “a failure.” Wilson declined to comment for this story.

Finkelstein said he was surprised to see Cantwell leave in the middle of an academic year, which is “extraordinarily uncommon” and wondered what more might have been at play.

Both he and Wilde said one solution, particularly around spending, is to do more thorough and frequent evaluations of university presidents while they are in office.

Currently, under USHE policy, those occur every four years and are focused on performance — with only a brief mention of the “fiscal health” of the institution.

“Even those that require an evaluation of the president typically don’t have anything that’s really measurable,” Wilde noted. “But it’s possible to have metrics and not be so loosey-goosey.”

For instance, Wilde said, one reasonable and achievable metric might be a president not spending more than they earn in salary — like Cantwell did at USU.

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