Throughout this year, the full scale of the academic scandal at the University of North Carolina has gradually been laid bare. This was not a mere case of cheating or misbehavior, nor is it merely a college sports scandal. It is a systematic, two-decade-long conspiracy involving academic advisers, students, at least one low-level administrator and the chairman of the university's Afro-American studies department.

More than 3,000 students — nearly half of them athletes — were permitted to take African-American Studies classes that involved no work, no attendance and obviously no learning. They were essentially expected to plagiarize their final papers, or else just write nonsensical essays — and many did. In the cases of several star athletes, the grades — which were (incredibly) awarded by the department's secretary and signed off by its chairman — kept them eligible to play basketball or football.

This was supposedly done out of a false sense of “compassion” for students, and a need to keep up the school's athletic reputation and bottom line.

The net effect of this scandal has been to cheapen the value of a UNC degree. Through the complicity of some university officials, the school delivered a subpar education, both for tuition-paying students and for the donors and taxpayers who helped finance their schooling.

But it would be a mistake to view this scandal in isolation. It is an especially acute case of how corrupt academia has become, and of the fact that it deserves far more scrutiny than it gets. For the 3,000 students in this case, academic rigor was literally reduced to zero. But with colleges and universities across the nation graduating semi-literate students who know little about history, government or science, it should not be taken as a completely isolated case.

The dumbing-down of standards is a serious problem in academia today. As the Washington Examiner's Ashe Schow recently noted, a study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni finds that fewer than one major school in five requires so much as a single course in American history or government to graduate. UNC is actually in good company in allowing its students to graduate without ever taking courses in these important subjects, nor in economics, nor in literature, nor in intermediate foreign language.

Academia consumes massive subsidies — including direct government funding, research grants and guaranteed loans that are preemptively impoverishing the next generation. Yet it is turning out mush-heads who cannot write well, cannot identify the current vice president and are unprepared to function in the professional world.

The insular and politically correct environments at American colleges and universities would be more tolerable if these institutions were actually demanding excellence from students and preparing them for the rigors of life afterward. Instead, they fall shorter and shorter of this goal with every passing year, all the while raising tuition and demanding ever-greater subsidies from taxpayers.

Surely, there is a lesson here that goes beyond college sports.