WASHINGTON -- At least eight universities, including four public institutions, have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for Hillary Rodham Clinton to speak on their campuses over the past year, leading to a backlash from some student groups and teachers at a time of austerity in higher education.
In one previously undisclosed transaction, the University of Connecticut -- which just raised tuition by 6.5 percent -- paid $251,250 for Clinton to speak on campus in April. Other examples include $300,000 to address the University of California at Los Angeles in March and $225,000 for a speech that is to occur in October at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
The potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate also has been paid for speeches at the University at Buffalo, Colgate University and Hamilton College in New York, as well as Simmons College in Massachusetts and the University of Miami in Florida.
Officials at those five schools refused to say what they paid Clinton. But if she earned her standard fee of $200,000 or more, that would mean she took in at least $1.8 million in speaking income from universities over the past nine months.
Since stepping down as secretary of state in early 2013, Clinton also has given dozens of paid speeches at industry conventions and Wall Street banks. But Clinton's acceptance of high fees for university visits has drawn particularly sharp criticism, with some students and academic officials saying the expenditures are a poor use of funds at a time of steep tuition increases and budget cuts across higher education.
At the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, where officials have agreed to raise tuition by 17 percent over the next four years, student government leaders wrote a letter to Clinton last week asking her to return the planned $225,000 fee to the university. If she does not, they said, they intend to protest her visit.
"The students are outraged about this," said Elias Benjelloun, the university's student body president. "When you see reckless spending, it just belittles the sacrifices students are consistently asked to make. I'm not an accountant or economist, so I can't put a price tag on how much we should be paying her, but I think she should come for free."
Clinton's spokesman, Nick Merrill, declined to comment on the students' request.
At seven of the eight universities listed, officials said her fee was paid through a lecture series endowment or private donations and not by tapping tuition, student fees or public dollars. A spokesman for Simmons declined to discuss the school's arrangement with Clinton.
Merrill said the UCLA and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas fees will go to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the family's nonprofit group. Merrill said he did not know whether the other six college payments went to the foundation.
Merrill also could not say whether the Harry Walker Agency, the speaker's bureau that manages Clinton's appearances, received a portion of the fees. Don Walker, the agency's president, did not respond to a request for comment.
Clinton's six-figure campus speaking fees have arisen as a political liability for her if she runs for president in 2016, given that President Barack Obama and other Democrats have made college affordability a central plank of the party's agenda. Student debt is a signature issue for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., whom some liberals have suggested as a challenger to Clinton in a primary. It's also something Clinton has talked about.
"I worry that we're closing the doors to higher education in our own country," Clinton said in March at a higher education conference in Texas. "This great model that we've had that's meant so much to so many is becoming further and further away from too many."
Clinton will headline the University of Nevada at Las Vegas Foundation's fundraising gala Oct. 13 at the Bellagio, a luxury hotel and casino in Las Vegas, where seats cost $200 each and tables of 10 sell for between $3,000 and $20,000.
Brian Greenspun, a Las Vegas media baron and University of Nevada at Las Vegas trustee, strongly defended Clinton's fee, which he said is expected to be fully covered by proceeds from the dinner. He said her star power will boost foundation donations.
"If you bring the right speakers in, people will come listen to them," Greenspun said. "If you bring the wrong speakers in, no one will show up. The right speakers, in today's capitalistic world, cost more money."
Greenspun, who was former President Bill Clinton's roommate at Georgetown University, added: "All Hillary's doing is getting paid what she normally gets paid for giving speeches -- not much more, not much less -- and she does honor to the university by coming."
The University of Nevada at Las Vegas and several other schools also hosted Bill Clinton for paid speeches in recent years. UCLA paid him $250,000 in 2012.
Devin Murphy, UCLA's undergraduate student body president, said, "You can't deny that Hillary Clinton has had vast experience in public service to our nation. But I am a bit concerned that $300,000 was spent for her to come. I am personally a low-income student of color at our university, and I recognize the importance of being fiscally responsible."
In some instances, Clinton's collegiate visits were part of annual lecture programs endowed by wealthy donors to lure prominent speakers to campus. At Colgate, for instance, the lecture series is funded by Edward Kerschner, who has worked as a senior executive at such financial firms as UBS, Citi Group and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
Kerschner said through spokesman Michaela Kron that he plays no role in selecting the speakers or arranging their visits.
Such lecture programs are common at many institutions, especially those looking to raise their national prestige, but they also have drawn criticism in academia.
Harry Lewis, a professor and former undergraduate dean at Harvard University who has written critically about priorities in higher education spending, said speaking fees at Clinton's level amount to "an extravagant form of advertising" for colleges that should focus instead on more scholastic initiatives.
"What makes fees at this level outrageous ... is that one speaker's fee becomes comparable to what it costs to educate a student for several years," Lewis said. "At the same time you're putting your students into serious debt, as most institutions do. It's an allocation of resources that's very suspect."
Clinton has spoken on a few campuses for free, including St. Andrews University in Scotland, where she was awarded an honorary degree at a celebration last fall marking the school's 600th anniversary. Clinton also visited Yale Law School, her alma mater, celebrating her 40th-year reunion and receiving the prestigious "Award of Merit."
At the University of Connecticut -- a public university about 70 miles northeast of Yale -- Clinton's $250,000 fee was underwritten entirely by Edmund Fusco, a New Haven-based developer, and his family, said Deb Cunningham, interim vice president for communications at the University of Connecticut Foundation.
"No taxpayer dollars went to support this," Cunningham said. "The purpose of this fund is really to bring engaging speakers to campus."
Mark Sargent, the university's student body president, said he believed Clinton's visit was worth the money.
"Having a political figure with the prestige of Hillary Clinton I think is a positive thing," Sargent said. But he added, "I can see how some people might be upset with her pricing."
A Section on 07/03/2014