. . . Schools have long enlisted other students to help keep tabs on their scholarship athletes, who are naturally tempted to skip class from time to time to catch up on the sleep they miss practicing, training and traveling for far-away, late-night games. Because college professors rarely grade based on attendance and can't be bothered to call the roll in big lecture halls, athletic departments often pay students a modest hourly wage to do the dirty work instead. Maryland has been using student "class checkers" for decades; Texas A&M, Georgia and Wisconsin have invested in similar class-checking operations.

At Kansas, officials recently identified a fundamental flaw in that system: Regular college students don't necessarily want to go to class any more than athletes do, and even the most responsible ones can be all-too-easily charmed by the most popular students on campus,

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