In California, an estimated 1 in 5 community college applications are scams, amounting to hundreds of thousands of "ghost students." These fraudulent applications use the stolen identities of real people who have no intention of setting foot in a classroom or taking an online course — all with the goal of pilfering financial aid. It all started during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That includes 64-year-old Richard Valicenti, a radiation oncologist at UC Davis, who received a check from the Department of Education last summer. His identity was stolen at work in 2021. That’s according to Nanette Asimov, higher education reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle.
Community colleges, as Asimov explains, are targeted because they accept anyone with a high school diploma.
“There's no need to show your SAT scores or anything else. And you don't even have to give your social security number to apply. So it's a very low bar. … If you want to apply for financial aid, then you have to show a social security number. And that's where the fraud comes in,” Asimov explains.
She points out that among 2.3 million applications fielded through the online portal CCC Apply, an estimated 460,000 were fake. The fraudsters got a hold of federal Pell Grants, which don’t have to be paid back.
Asimov says it’s still unclear who’s behind the scam, but it appears that technology helped enable it.
“They use bots. They’re real people. But then the way they impersonate students online is to use these software algorithms that show up for class and do multiple enrollment attempts, even though maybe the real fraudsters are just three people. And so that's how they use automation to help them with this. And that's why the state and local colleges can try to counterattack with software of their own.”
She adds that individual campuses are left to filter out the scammers. Asimov points to one admissions officer who says she spends 25% of her time “crime fighting” and trying to figure out who’s real and who’s not. Others watch for consecutive ID numbers, strange email addresses, and senior-age birth dates.
“This is not how the college instructors want to be spending their time. They want to be teaching. They want to be doing whatever they're hired to do. So 25% of your time on this — it's a real impact on colleges.”