In a statement Thursday, the university noted that the violations were self-reported and that Georgia Southern self-imposed most of the resulting penalties. “Institutional checks and balances promptly detected the actions of these rogue former employees, despite their efforts to hide what they knew to be policy violations,” the university stated.

While it’s common for institutions to place the blame on a few “rogue former employees,” the case at Georgia Southern is only the most recent example of what critics and other observers of big-time college sports call an epidemic of academic fraud. In the last two years, more than a half dozen NCAA institutions have committed academic misconduct, and the association says it is investigating another 20 for similar violations.

An analysis by Inside Higher Ed of the association’s major infraction database found that the NCAA has punished Division I institutions at least 15 times for academic fraud in the last decade. ..read more here