(RNS) Every now and then, a tragic situation like sexual abuse at Penn State explodes into public view and stays there because it raises far-reaching and troubling questions.

People at the center of the storm feel unfairly treated, as if the world was piling on their local tragedy and feasting on their pain. But the spotlight stays because the scandal’s stench goes beyond the technicalities of how officials handled allegations of child rape in a locker room.

In coming months, I think four conversations will be taking place that could alter the landscape of higher education well beyond Penn State.

First, in living rooms and dorms around the nation, I think parents and debt-laden students will be asking: What are we paying for? Did we seek college education in order to form football loyalties or to learn useful skills, cultural intelligence and meaningful values?

As higher education costs soar and employers demand actual skills and not just entries on a resume, parents and students will find less comfort in athletic outcomes. Instead, they will be scanning a school’s academic achievements, hiring rates, signs of civic consciousness and moral conscience.

Second, state officials will be asking: Where does the buck stop? Who is running our state schools — football coaches, sports-crazed alumni, fundraisers in the president’s chair, students wanting a good time?

At some point, Pennsylvania’s governor needs to ask the Penn State board of trustees what kind of university they allowed to emerge where no one thought to do the right thing. The absence of moral accountability might prove to be the scandal’s most disturbing legacy. It links directly to rampant moral collapse in finance, corporate life and politics.

Third, trustees of colleges and universities should be asking what value they are actually delivering to their students and to a nation that depends on their graduates. Some elite schools have fallen off the radar of corporate recruiters because their students have an entitlement attitude and expect to be paid just for showing up. Other schools are being told their graduates can’t read, write, process complex ideas or get their work done.

Ironically, Penn State had risen to No. 1 among corporate recruiters because of its students’ supposed work ethic and values. On a broader scale, are schools cashing tuition checks or forming the minds and lives of capable, morally aware citizens?

Fourth, as signs of broken systems cascade over us, many citizens are asking: What gives?

A presidential candidate is accused of sexual misconduct, and in response his lawyer threatens to destroy any woman who goes public about abuse. What gives?

Politicians respond to citizen unrest by scapegoating immigrants and minorities, while offering nonsense solutions and quietly dismantling regulatory systems that inconvenience their corporate benefactors. What gives?

Fundamentalist Christians have calibrated the nation’s moral compass to two issues — abortion and homosexuality — that matter to them but hardly rise to the level of primary concern either in Scripture or in daily life. The effect has been to provide cover to a true loss of moral compass, which numbs even great institutions and shows little concern for injustice. What gives?

Such conversations cut to the core of what kind of nation we want to be and what roles our institutions of learning play. Going ahead with a football game against Nebraska suddenly seems sadly trivial.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter (at)tomehrich.)