CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Illinois universities are making news on how well they’re paying their professors, at the same time, the schools are offering new courses based on controversial topics.

The University of Illinois’ average pay for professors is $150,100, putting it at the 17th highest in the nation, the American Association of University Professors annual ranking of faculty compensation shows.

Northwestern University in Evanston is even better. They pay their professors an average of $196,500.

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Northern Illinois University is getting attention not for what it pays its professors, but for what it offers their students.

The university as new honors credits for the “Game of Thrones, Television and Medieval History” course. The class focuses on the popular HBO series based on books by George R.R. Martin, and includes a plot full of political intrigue, magic, murder, war, nudity, sex, incest and, on occasion, cannibalism.

The course filled up within hours of being offered, the university reports.

“[The series] represents aspects of the Middle Ages much more realistically than other media depictions that purport to be more accurate,” co-professor Valerie Garver told the Daily Chronicle.

“It stands out because it comments on the human condition in a way that seems real to people. It’s a really good example of a piece of modern culture that draws on how the past impacts the present.”

At DePaul and Northern Illinois, accounting and forensic accounting classes are teaching about Dixon comptroller Rita Crundwell’s  two decades of stealing from taxpayers.

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Crundwell used the money to support a horse-breeding operation and a lavish lifestyle. She was arrested in 2012 and is serving 20 years in federal prison.

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