[ad_1]
Officials at California Community College are working to overcome serious predicaments, including hundreds of thousands of fake students and large financial aid losses.
This multi-million dollar problem could be solved in part for a fee of $10.
At a California Community College board meeting last month, authorities discussed a proposal to charge a $10 application fee to prospective students.
As officials prepare to take steps to prevent fraud, the claim is another way to eliminate people betting on the system to steal financial aid dollars. At the May 20th meeting, the proposal for approval to investigate the implementation of “nominal” application fees was filled with long and cheerful discussions.
However, the severity and volume of the fraud led the Prime Minister’s office to consider the claim. This represents a fundamental shift from the open access model of the system.
How do scammers scam the system?
Of those who applied to the state community colleges from January to December 2024, 31% were deemed fraudulent. This is over 1.2 million applications, according to data from the University System’s Prime Minister’s Office.
Anyone who applies to California Community College is permitted. This accessibility, coupled with an increase in class remote and hybrid formats since the Covid-19 pandemic, creates vulnerability for fraudsters to leverage cash in both state and federal financial aid.
Scammers can act as dozens or hundreds of students with the help of stolen identities, bots and artificial intelligence. They will be in class and remain registered until they receive a financial aid check. Fake students take limited spots in classes that real students need to take, causing headaches for both students and staff.
Financial aid is heading towards tuition fees first, but low-income community college students pay little or no tuition in California. This means you will receive direct funding for use on books, housing, food and other needs while you are at school.
Some scammers spent their cash on plastic surgery, elaborate holidays and designer bags, federal officials say.
How much help is it forged students?
State community colleges have been steadily increasing in recent years with fraudulent applications and registrations. In 2022, the Times meant that 20% of recent traffic on the online application’s main portal were malicious and bot-related, and that such traffic had jumped over 10% within three years by the beginning of 2025.
Thirty-one percent of applicants were considered likely to be fraud last year, but that doesn’t mean that 31% of students in the Community College System are fake, says John Hetz, deputy prime minister of research, analysis and data at California Community College.
Hetts emphasized in the Times earlier this year that those fraudulent applicants were detected and locked out of the system, preventing financial aid registration and stealing.
Authorities said improvements to individual campuses in fraud detection have increased the proportion of discontinued fake applications, but there have also been more attempts.
Approximately 30% of applicants who were probably fake in 2024 account for around 85% of attempts to fraud, according to Chris Ferguson, the vice-prime minister of financial and strategic initiatives who spoke at the governor’s meeting last month.
Data from the prime minister’s office shows that about $8.4 million in federal aid and $2.7 million in state aid were stolen by fraudsters in 2024.
According to officials at the prime minister’s office, that is just a “very small percentage” of the total aid paid at community colleges in California. From 2024 to 2025, students received about $2 billion in state aid and about $1.5 billion in state aid from all federal sources, including loans and Pell grants, officials said.
Over $4 million in state aid was paid between January and mid-April this year with $4 million in federal aid and state aid, amortized as fraud by California Community Colleges.
With over 2.1 million students collectively receiving billions of aid, Hetts said his office is “quite proud” of the record.
“We can absolutely get better. There’s no doubt about the dollars we lose, we don’t want to lose that dollar, but we’re really fighting hard,” he said, and the “majority of attempts” is stopped.
What is being done to stop the scam?
Prime Minister’s Office officials said they could not share certain mitigation measures they introduced to detect and prevent applications, registrations and financial aid fraud, but they said they were implementing a “complete redesign” of the application system.
The new system we hope to roll out by the Spring 2026 semester will integrate fraud detection tools. Ferguson said there will be “downstream impacts” to prevent registration and financial aid fraud if fraudsters are suspended during the application phase.
Jason Williams, an aide to the Department of Education’s Inspectors’ Office, said financial aid fraud is not a new phenomenon. It is not exclusive to California either. His office is investigating a nationwide fraud cycle that is specifically targeting community colleges for low tuition costs. This means that scammers can collect more remaining financial aid dollars compared to more expensive schools.
But “as we change and close our loopholes, they find something new,” Williams said. “We need to make sure we’re evolving with scams, see what’s going on so that we can continue to be effective.”
Williams said the fight against fraud could be even more challenging if the Trump administration attempts to dismantle the education sector. A major layoff in the department was blocked by a federal judge in May. The Trump administration then called for the Supreme Court to place a layoff earlier this month.
The department’s inspector’s office has not been affected by the layoffs, but the resignation and voluntary acquisition program provided to all federal employees when Trump took office has lost about 20% of the workforce since early last fall, officials said.
He said the decline in staffing has had a significant impact, especially as federal employment freezes prevent teams from playing a key role.
Amidst the layoff chaos, departmental workloads could increase as new steps are enacted to combat fraud.
The education department announced earlier this month that it was implementing new rules that require financial aid applicants to participate in either in person or in live video conferences. The change will take effect in the fall and, interim, the university will need to verify the identities of certain first-time applicants registered during the summer.
“If ramp-delayed fraud receives assistance from eligible students, disrupts the operations of the university and tears taxpayers apart, we are responsible for taking action,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a news release announcing the changes.
As for now, it is a “potential consideration and not a natural conclusion,” a spokesman for the prime minister’s office told The Times. New fees must be approved by state law.
Staff in the prime minister’s office said they were not trying to create obstacles for hopeful students.
As fees have not been discussed as a potential revenue stream, authorities said students who have demonstrated financial difficulties could be exempt, refunded or credited.
There was “big deliberation” about fees at the board meeting in May, said Jolie Hadsell, a senior executive at the prime minister’s office, focusing on strategic technology initiatives, but “there is a sense that there is an urgent need to move to protect access for all students.”
The system is currently working with IT security company ID.ME to help verify the identity of applicants. However, at the individual university level, according to Hetz in the prime minister’s office, staff and faculty are familiar with the process of determining whether a student is authentic by checking “real engagement” in class.
They are also familiar with some of the tricks that con artists try to pull. LACCD Deputy Prime Minister Nicole Albo Lopez said one person trying to register with the LA Community College district came to a face-to-face meeting and presented his California driver’s license in weight listed on kilograms.
Examples like this remind her that students in these schemes fill up classrooms and steal taxpayer dollars – is not real, but the people behind the scam are not real.
“This isn’t just a computer or a robot,” said Arbo Lopez. “These are real people who are committing these crimes, and technology is weaponized to attack other sectors. Higher education is what they are focusing on right now.”
[ad_2]Source link
