UNC is racking up a pretty serious tab in the wake of its academic scandal.
The scandal began back in 2010 but has blown up in recent months. During that time, public relations costs have been mounting while the school attempts to do damage control in the wake of an investigation that found thousands of students (the majority of them athletes) took sham classes while enrolled at UNC.
According to Dan Kane of News & Observer, "a firm hired several months ago to help with the scandal and other communications efforts has billed the school $782,000."
That's on top of the reported $500,000 the school had previously spent on public relations concerning the scandal.
The cost was reported by Rick White, a UNC spokesman, on Wednesday. Joel Curran, UNC’s vice chancellor of communications and public affairs, said that the firm - Edelman - began working for the school in May as part of a revamping of the university’s communications efforts.
"Edelman supports UNC-Chapel Hill’s management of media relations, content creation (digital, social media and websites), strategic services (such as video production), internal communications, and other related areas," White wrote in an email to the News & Observer. "Many universities engage public relations agencies for a range of services."
- with h/t to CBS Sports