UNC, Chapel Hill, Under Fire For Academic Fraud

Considered a premier public institution, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is now under fire for academic fraud. According to an independent report released Wednesday, 3,100 students at the university are associated with fraud involving no-show courses and academic leniency. The students were enrolled in classes between 2003 and 2011 that have been dubbed "shadow curriculum," in which attendance and engagement were not required to receive a passing grade. Wednesday's report is the latest part of investigations that began when the scandal came to light three years ago.

The students involved, many of whom were athletes for the university, took these "paper classes" to boost their grades. Some athletes may not have been eligible to compete in their sports by NCAA standards without the boost the class provided. The report stated, "In the case of 329 students, the grade they received in a paper class provided the GPA boost that either kept or pushed their GPA above the 2.0 level for a semester." And once the class was canceled in 2009, the football team had its lowest average GPA in a decade.