A bigger scandal than the sports issue is how has this university maintained its Academic Accreditation?
Dozens of administrators were involved in perpetuating this fraud with over 3,000 students for a generation. This wasn't a rogue tutor or a rogue teacher but a Coordinated University Culture.
They should receive severe Academic Sanctions from the Accreditation Agencies in addition to the NCAA Death Penalty for involved sports. This IS a school that needs to start anew.
For what it's worth, my understanding of the accreditation process is that it's done by academic program. I'm sure there is probably some sort of high level accreditation that is done for the university as a whole, but I would not expect a cheating scandal to be uncovered at that level or hard to disguise.
In the university setting that I work in, a good number of our academic programs are individually accredited by an accrediting body specializing within that discipline or field of study. Accreditation usually involves a lot of self-reported paperwork, followed by one or two site visits. But not all academic programs are accredited - not even close. For instance, the last I knew, only two journalism programs in Michigan were accredited programs - Central Michigan University and Michigan State University. Even though every other university in the state offers some sort of journalism degree, they are not obligated to be accredited.
My guess is that the program that UNC was pushing their kids through was not accredited, and as such, fell under little outside scrutiny.But given the self-reported nature of the process and the minimal interaction with students and faculty with the accrediting committee, I'm not convinced it would be difficult to cover up at all.
