The president of West Virginia University, Mike Garrison, has announced (after a tremendous controversy the past weeks), that he will resign in September. Garrison awarded an M.B.A. to ‘to Heather Bresch, the daughter of Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, even though she did not have enough academic credits.’

Obviously, Ms. Bresch is a ‘longtime friend and former business associate’ of Mr. Garrison.

“During the last six weeks, we have found the university at the center of controversy and clamor,” Mr. Garrison said in a statement released after a meeting of the university’s board of governors in Charlestown. “I have made a decision to continue to serve as president of W.V.U. until September, because it is what a leader in this particular situation must do.”

Ms. Bresch, 38, works for Mylan, a leading manufacturer of generic drugs, which employs 2,000 people in Morgantown, W.Va. The company’s chairman, Milan Puskar, is a major campaign contributor to Mr. Manchin, a Democrat, and is the university’s largest donor, having given it $20 million in 2003.

In his statement, Mr. Garrison said he hoped his decision would finally permit the university to “get back to the celebration of our greatness, our honor, and the successes of our academic mission.”

Money can buy your everything, can’t it? Even academic credentials. Or so Mr. Garrison thought, that is.