"Student-athletes" reading at a 3rd grade level??

A few days ago, Mary Willingham, an academic counselor for UNC- Chapel Hill came out and provided detailed evidence on the lack of knowledge of athletes from revenue generating sports (ex: mens basketball and football). She went on to provide stats on how some athletes could not read at all and over 50% were reading at an eight grade level or lower. Wow! More stats here and overview article: here

And guess what they university did? They said that her measurements for reading levels are wrong with out providing any warrants why. Willingham was followed by another "education whistleblower", Madeline Levine, who backs up what Willingham was saying by also providing information on how many of her student athletes couldn't keep up with the college grade work level at all and often struggled to pass

In addition, UNC came out and said that they had a department at their school, the African American Studies department which was holding fake classes and giving grades for those fake classes.

Willingham had been seeing to much of an unfair treatment to regular students who wanted to get a good education and said, "I don't believe until we tell the truth that we can move forward." She's right. Its not fair at all to just drop the situation as a whole until all the facts are known and the truth comes out.

The bigger issue is that kids aren't able to read in COLLEGE. It seems as if these kids are just floating by school with only a mindset of getting to the next level in athletics, whether it be college or a pro sports league.

Why do you think these kids are able to get all the way to college without being able to read?