David Sargent, the 77-year-old president of Suffolk University in Boston, received a $2.8 million pay package in 2006-07 — including a $436,000 longevity bonus and more than $1 million in deferred compensation — after the board of trustees, eager to delay his retirement, decided he had long been underpaid.

Sargent was the nation’s highest-compensated university president in the annual survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education, being released today.

Others also received more than $2 million. David Roselle, who resigned as president of the University of Delaware in June 2007, had a package of $2.4 million, including deferred compensation.

And E. Gordon Gee, who forfeited more than half of his $2 million compensation package when he resigned from Vanderbilt University in 2007 to become president of Ohio State University, is the highest-paid public university president, the survey found. Gee’s Ohio State package was raised just this month to more than $1.3 million.

While seven-figure pay packages had been limited mostly to prominent private research universities, some presidents of public institutions like Ohio State and Delaware, or private universities like Suffolk that offer few doctoral degrees, are also topping $1 million in pay and benefits.

In fact, compensation for public research university presidents is growing faster than for those who head private institutions, the survey found.

“The public universities are still behind, but only by about $100,000,” said Jeffrey Selingo, the editor of The Chronicle.

Median pay and benefits for presidents of public institutions rose 7.6 percent in 2007-08, to $427,400, The Chronicle said. Over a five-year period, the public universities’ median compensation rose 36 percent, compared with 19 percent at private institutions.

Among the public university presidents, The Chronicle found, 59 received more than $500,000 in 2007-08, compared with 43 the previous year. At the private institutions, 89 received at least $500,000, compared with 81 the previous year.