Cost For Colleges To Conduct Internal Investigations Is Substantial
The cost for colleges to conduct internal investigations is very substantial. Kristi Dosh takes a look at the numbers.
How much does it cost for a college to conduct an internal investigation? We dive into the numbers here.
Currently, some of the higher-profile allegations of NCAA violations are being investigated at Louisville, Ole Miss and Tennessee. One thing we don’t hear about as often during the course of these investigations is just how much it costs the athletic department – and, in some cases, the university – to conduct their internal investigations.
On the lower end of the scale are violations like Iowa State had a few years back involving impermissible calls and texts to recruits. Those violations were relatively minor in the grand scheme of violations – although they were described as “major violations,” they’re nothing compared to something like what happened at Penn State or UNC – but the internal investigation cost the athletic department $30,000 in consulting fees.
Thirty thousand sounds like a hefty bill for such seemingly minor violations, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the invoices UNC has been racking up.
In an effort to be transparent about how the academic scandal has been handled at UNC, the university established a website where it provides information about its investigation, including the mounting cost of righting the ship.
According to the website, retaining the services of three law firms and one public relations firm has cost the university over $7.6 million since 2012. As you can imagine, the number of public records requests coming into the university has increased – so much so that the university has gone from zero employees dedicated to public records to the equivalent of 9.2 employees in this department, with a cost of $600,000.
That’s $600,000 and 9.2 people who do nothing but maintain records and respond to open records requests. All as a consequence of the academic improprieties that came to light. Talk about opening a can of worms.
UNC says no tuition dollars or state funds have been used to fund the investigation and ensuing reform. Instead, these costs are covered by a foundation funded by private dollars.
How many of those donors do you think considered their hard-earned money would go to cover legal costs for a huge academic scandal that kept the university in the news for all the wrong reasons when they donated?
