A shameful scandal is only now coming to light at the University of Texas at Dallas that risks tarnishing the entire institution and setting back its growing reputation as a place of rigorous study and high academic standards.

As is so often the case, it appears the almighty buck is at the root of the trouble. Or more accurately, the financial incentives weren’t lined up with the outcome we should all want.

A Dallas Morning News investigation published over the weekend showed not only that UTD supported a master's degree program tailored to police officers that awarded students high grades without attending class, it also suggested that UTD's leadership is more concerned with protecting the institution's reputation than coming clean about what happened there.

A university is only as good as the standards it represents.

But UTD administrators were either clueless when it came to the program or, worse, they turned a blind eye to the poorest of academic practices.

We don’t know which is true. In a letter to accreditors, UTD President Richard Benson suggested the program — known as the Justice Administration and Leadership program — was rogue. But the three people who ran it said through an attorney that the program operated “with the express consent and knowledge of the UTD.”

It would have been nice to put those contradicting claims to the person who should know best, Benson himself.

But Benson, a public employee charged with overseeing a major local institution, refused to answer questions about what happened.

What’s more, the university refused to release an investigative report about the master’s program, using exceptions in state open records law to obscure its findings. If a publicly funded university can’t figure out how to give insight into a publicly funded investigation, it’s in serious need of new administrative help.

University of Texas System Chancellor James B. Milliken needs to take this entire situation very seriously and demand answers from Benson about what happened to permit the master’s program to be run with insufficient academic rigor, why it was given so little oversight and why professors at the university appear fearful of speaking out about what exactly is going on at UTD.

For its part, UTD needs to undertake an examination of all its post-graduate programs, particularly those designed to generate revenue, and offer assurances they are academically sound.

That’s because the entire structure of this master’s degree program appeared tailor-made for trouble.

The program was designed to give police officers academic credit for noncollege training. Then, the program would reward instructors financially based on how many courses they taught. The university ended up paying tens of thousands of dollars in incentives to two of the program’s founders, Robert Taylor and John Worrall.

See the problem?

Students, that is cops, were telling professors they didn’t need to come to class to get high marks. It was all taken care of.

That came as a surprise to professors who understand that to earn academic credit, you need to do academic work.

It doesn’t appear, though, that this was the fault of the police officers who took these courses, some of whom are now chiefs of police in towns throughout North Texas. They did as they were instructed based on the program for which they signed up.

If nothing else, UTD permitted its name and academic reputation to be used to create a money-making program that awarded its creators for getting as many people as possible through the doors.

This sort of perverse incentive is hardly uncommon in academia. But it inevitably distorts the true purpose of granting a degree: giving the person upon whom that degree is bestowed the highest quality education possible.

It is called a master’s degree for a reason. The person who earns it has demonstrated a mastery of the material. It should be hard. It should be rigorous.

UTD's failure to uphold the highest standards, and then its failure to be transparent, are marks against the institution. And despite whoever knew what at whatever time, the bad grade goes to the administration.

Correction 1:59 p.m. February 4: President Richard Benson's first name was inaccurately represented in an earlier version of this editorial.