The NCAA is investigating 20 schools for alleged academic misconduct, 18 from D-I, and one each from D-II and D-III

The NCAA’s head of enforcement told the Chronicle’s Brad Wolverton that it is investigating 20 schools for academic misconduct.

According to the report, the cases being investigated are in various stages, from a preliminary inquiry, to schools waiting to hear back from the Committee on Infractions.

Some of the alleged infractions concern athletes receiving impermissible assistance from professors, academic advisers or people not connected with an athletic department.

The NCAA declined to name any of the schools they are investigating, but says 18 of them are in Division I, with one each in Division II and Division III.

The NCAA plans to hire more staff to an academic-integrity group.

"The timing is right to dedicate more resources to this," Katherine Sulentic, the chair of that academic-integrity group, said. "Everyone’s antenna is up about academic fraud on a college campus in general."

In recent months at least four schools have come under the NCAA’s ire. North Carolina found that advisers guided athletes to take classes that they did not have to show up for and received grades to help keep them eligible. Last summer, the NCAA reopened its 2011 investigation of "academic irregularities" at the school.

Weber State was placed on three years probation and had scholarships reduced in its football program after finding that a math instructor help players cheat on quizzes and tests.

The NCAA suspended Georgia swimming coach Jack Bauerle for nine meets and placed him on a one-year recruiting restriction after he arranged for an athlete to enroll a student in a course, defying athletic administrators wishes. The school was also fined $5,000.

This week, Southern Mississippi self-imposed a postseason ban for this basketball season because of an ongoing NCAA probe into the program involving ineligible “Prop 48″ players.

- Scooby Axson