Chief financial officers at the nation's private colleges have bigger workloads than ever before, and in return, many are taking home much larger paychecks. A "Chronicle" survey of 103 private doctoral institutions shows that between 2003 and 2005, the median compensation package for the top financial position, which includes such titles as vice president for business and finance and vice president for business and administration, rose 13.8 percent. That raise was more than twice the increase in median pay and benefits for provosts. Compensation packages for chief financial officers also outpaced the 7.9-percent increase in pay and benefits for presidents at such colleges. As financial officers in higher education command more for their services, not only at the colleges that were part of the survey but also at other institutions, industry observers are closely watching one key factor that has the potential to push salaries even higher: an increasing willingness to hire from outside academe. A recent sampling of job advertisements for chief financial officers at various colleges called for candidates able to manage operating budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and oversee areas that included human resources, information technology, facilities, risk management, and auxiliary services. Colleges also want candidates with the skills needed to develop long-term financial plans and lead the way in securing financing for a wide range of construction and renovation projects. With all that is at stake, colleges both small and large are more often looking for candidates from corporate America, government, or other nonprofit organizations. A chief financial officer of a public company may have expertise in areas increasingly valuable to the higher-education sector, such as capital markets or real-estate. Adapting to nonprofit accounting methods is not difficult, but chief financial officers accustomed to making quick decisions and focusing on the bottom line sometimes find it difficult to navigate higher-education's culture of shared governance. And, while business officers with ties to corporate America may get paid more than their peers whose roots are in higher-education finance, they are unlikely to make as much as they did in business. However, higher education does offer some benefits of its own. Unlike public and private companies, colleges rarely close, merge, or relocate, and, for those attuned to the mission, they may offer a quality of life not found in private industry.