This is my second post on some newspaper articles that I recently read. Today's post deals with academic fraud.

Questions linger in academic fraud case

Over the past year, the News and Observer has occasionally reported on a scandal at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in which various student athletes received college credit for courses "in which little or no instruction was provided." In the latest story, an investigative reporter suggests that the academic fraud was not limited to football players, but might involve basketball players as well. The reporter makes a good statistical argument:

Some have cited the low percentage of basketball players enrolling in the 54 classes that university officials say showed little or no instruction. Three percent, or 23 enrollments, does seem small. But it doesn’t take many athletes to field a basketball team—five on the floor plus several backups. If [UNC-CH basketball coach Roy] Williams fielded a new team each of the four years of the period under review, 23 enrollments could equal one in three players taking a suspect class.

In other words, the reporter rightly moves from absolute numbers (23 basketball players) to relative percentages (33%) of the basketball program. The data are not publically available, but statistics provides several ways to analyze and compare the proportion between groups that might help address whether academic fraud was committed with the intent "to provide improper academic assistance solely to athletes." If so, then the NCAA could become involved in this investigation.

For too many college students, the goal of college is to get a degree. However, the goal of most faculty members is that students get an education, which is a completely different thing. In this case, a professor is allegedly a willing participant in a system that awards degrees to athletes without requiring an education.

Comments?