May have been posted already, but the below is excerpted from a recent article in The Athletic. And even if you want to ignore and/or separate the athletic dept. scandal from the overall academic profile of the university (and if you are o.k. with that, what does their "sterling academic reputation" have to do with being an attractive member for another conference?), there have been numerous dings to the UNC academic "brand" in recent years outside of the athletic part.
Don’t underestimate the power of the Tar Heels in all of this. While things have been relatively quiet in ACC country since the UCLA and USC news last week, UNC remains the biggest prize not named Notre Dame. It is a national brand — what other school has a shade of blue named after it? — with a sterling academic reputation. And it is the flagship school of the nation’s 10th-biggest state in terms of population — one that happens to be the biggest remaining state that is not currently in the Big Ten or SEC footprint.