Nearly 17 years ago a black student from New York City was finishing his final semester at the University of North Carolina.

It wasn’t intended to be his last semester; he intended to graduate. But he and his single mom had run out of money. UNC said there was nothing it could do for him. As it was, he wrote me, he had survived that last semester “thanks to a few kind women in the university lunchroom.”

It bothered this kid — a lot, too — that a star on UNC’s football team, a big kid he liked and shared a class with, seemed illiterate. But this UNC full-scholarship student-athlete — also black — didn’t have to worry about where his next meal or good grades came from.

So, in his final days at UNC, while waiting to speak with the professor of the class he shared with the football star, the kid from NYC slipped two of the footballer’s “essays” from the prof’s stack of papers.

He sent them to me. … They were enough to make you cry. Still are.

Both were under a page long, written — sort of — in pen, loaded with cross-outs. That a college instructor — even a junior high teacher — would accept work in such condition seems impossible.

As for the content, it’s heartbreaking. The one titled, “Abortion” includes, as written: “It seem that the women ought to be the one who desides,” “Abortion is a tough typic and men difently does not need to make the choice,” and “women that get abortion are many times looked at as a bad person.”

The other, titled “A Girl Part of UNC Football,” includes, “The young lady manger [manager] fills that she does get specill treatment. She fills that the coaches treates her nice becaus she is girl.”

His grade on these college essays? A perfect 5 out of 5, on each. They include the professor’s check marks of content approval, including twice-underlined praise as, “Interesting.”

There was nothing UNC could do for the broke kid from NYC, the real college student. He left disillusioned, disgusted and distrustful. But the marginally literate football star maintained his full ride, matriculated — remained football-eligible — and after his time at UNC played in the NFL.

UNC now is in the throes of a sports-centric fraud scandal that should be rocking everyone’s world, but hasn’t yet made much news or noise among our networks’ growing sports divisions. TV, as always, is in on the fix, eager to maintain, grow or land NCAA rights, as well as assiduously avoid issues of, gulp, race.

Last month a longtime UNC professor and chairman of its African and Afro-American Studies department — who had resigned under pressure in 2011 — was indicted for accepting pay to teach what was exposed as a no-teach/no-show course on African-American culture. Eighteen of the 19 students enrolled in Professor Julius Nyang’Oro’s imaginary course were football players, the other a former player. All did very well!

Further investigations found an overwhelmingly disproportionate percentage of football and basketball players were funneled into Dr. Nyango’oro’s courses. At the time of his resignation, his salary was $171,000. He had been on UNC’s faculty since — yikes! — 1992.

According to N.C. newspaper reports, Nyang’Oro, if he ever read or legitimately graded papers, neither recognized nor punished blatant plagiarism. In one case, the embarrassed school, having been publicly alerted to plagiarized work submitted by 2010 star linebacker Michael McAdoo, changed his grade from an A to an F.

Tip of the iceberg stuff? No, tip of the continent stuff. This isn’t an outbreak. It’s an epidemic, the corner of Criminal and Insane.

Our major universities have abandoned their sacred, written charters that vow to advance a society devoted to educating its most eager learners. Dozens of our colleges have sacrificed their credibility, integrity and good senses at the cashier’s window of TV and sneaker giant money.

Only those so twisted as to believe that our colleges — their college — primarily should be in the big business of producing conference champions can argue.

I’ve written it for years — been spitting into the hurricane for years — well before that broke student could no longer attend UNC while the semi-illiterate football star was gifted everything, including grades: Few NCAA D-I football or basketball colleges could successfully defend federal racketeering charges.

So many of our top academic institutions — often taxpayer sustained and yahoo-politician enabled — continue to serve as fronts for expensive and often otherwise unaffordable sports teams, teams that not only aren’t part of the schools’ education process, but operate in belligerent defiance.

And the only thing that changes is for the worse: Uglier, more crooked — from co-opted college presidents to the recruitment of “student-athletes” more likely to leave college with an arrest record than a college education.

No worries, though. Soon, President Obama again will appear on TV to fill out his NCAA Tournament brackets. Spitting into the hurricane.

Finally, a media vote that is smooth and sane

The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association last week elected Marv Albert to its Hall of Fame and Doc Emrick as Sportscaster of the Year, thus restoring fading faith that sports-attached elections can conclude in good-sense decisions.

Have you noticed the moral compromise — the nose-holding — that now obstructs (or should) voters for such awards as the Heisman, the Baseball Hall of Fame, the college basketball and football coaches of the year, weekly poll rankings?

There are so few clean candidates that if you’re looking for the lesser evils, they’re not on the ballots.

So ESPN, the multiple channels sports network dedicated to the mindless destruction of every sport it touches, leads its BCS telecast with a number by Eminem, the vulgar, violent rapper who, as per “The Rappers’ Guide to Genre Uniformity,” specializes in boasts, trash-talk and taunts.

Great idea, fellas. Now that all national sports telecasts must open with pop music, aim low. It’s not as if Division I ball isn’t already suffering from a criminal epidemic; let’s use the national championship to throw in some young, crime-culture music — you morons!

Or as Eminem raps, “I’ll slit your mother—ing throat worse than Ron Goldman!” Yes, good choice, again, ESPN.

In the fourth quarter, when Florida State lost a chance to go for two to tie because running back Devonta Freeman was hit with 15-yard penalty for taunting Auburn’s bench, Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit questioned the kid’s thought processes. Yep.