Reference to the FI250 in the NOA supplementary information was made on the other thread (about the Dan Kane article) in a comment. Looking at that exhibit is interesting, as they basically go back as far as 1997-98 in the UNC undergraduate bulletin.
For example the 1997-98 UNC undergraduate bulletin mentions Independent Studies (which it clearly says are correspondence courses) and says that a student may earn 30 semester hours of credit toward a degree. But it also says that
"students attending classes may not enroll in an Independent Studies course at the same time without the written consent of their deans."
Later there's a section on "Special Studies for Credit" where it mentions
"Variable amounts of credit up to six hours per semester and twelve hours total for graduation may be taken (which it clearly says are correspondence courses) and says that a student may earn 30 semester hours of credit toward a degree. But it also says that
"students attending classes may not enroll in an Independent Studies course at the same time without the written consent of their deans."
Later there's a section on "Special Studies for Credit" where it mentions
"Variable amounts of credit up to six hours per semester and twelve hours total for graduation may be taken fo(which it clearly says are correspondence courses) and says that a student may earn 30 semester hours of credit toward a degree. But it also says that
"students attending classes may not enroll in an Independent Studies course at the same time without the written consent of their deans."
Later there's a section on "Special Studies for Credit" where it mentions
"Variable amounts of credit up to six hours per semester and twelve hours total for graduation may be taken for graded credit."r graded credit."for graded credit."
A couple of points: If players during this time were taking paper classes, it appears that these would not be 'independent study' classes as defined by the school at the time because they were on-campus and presumably taking actual classes at some point. The only way they could do this would involve express written consent by the Deans. So if UNC wants to argue this point, then they either broke their own policies or the Deans were complicit and should have known what was going on in terms of the large number of athletes and large number of such classes involved. (i.e. the scandal can't be blamed solely on a secretary). So this is an area the NCAA should pursue vigorously IMO.
Otherwise, if the classes fall under "Special Studies for Credit", then it goes back to the earlier issue which was discussed regarding the fact that a student can't use more than 12 hours of these classes for credit towards graduation. (and can't use more than six hours per semester), which goes back to my original comment when this whole scandal started to break, that someone needs to go back and comb through the past few decades of transcripts looking for these types of patterns. (which they finally start to do in exhibit FI249, FI248 etc.)
Remember that part of the NCAA's regulations are that the school has to certify that their athletes are not only taking a minimum number of credits each semester, but that they are 'on-track to graduate'. In cases where an athlete has already taken 12 hours-worth of these classes, then any additional class beyond that would not be applicable towards graduation, which in turn means UNC can't rely on those classes when they certify their athletes are in good standing and eligible for competition.
This helps to explain why Debbie Crowder was deceptive in characterizing many of her bogus paper classes as 'lecture-style' classes, even though there was no lecture and indeed no instruction involved.
Unlike what Bobby claims (saying that the 12 hour rule only came into effect in 2012 well after Crowder left), this 12-hour rule appears to be in place going back to at least 1997-98, and probably far longer.
Starting in 2006-07, the exhibit no longer provides any reference to correspondence classes, but retains the "Special Studies for Credit" section, which still mentions the
"Twelve hours of graded special studies credit may be counted toward graduation, though no more than six hours may be taken in any one semester."
Again the supplementary exhibits can be downloaded at the link below:
NCAA NOA supplementary exhibits (pdf)
Curious what other people think.