Ghost students are creating problems for California colleges
111 comments
·May 7, 2025autoexec
alistairSH
Yeah, this confused me as well...
Are these bots successfully completing FAFSA forms to the government?
And the government is successfully generating ISIRs to send to the schools?
If yes, then this is a federal ID verification issue.
If not, why are the schools sending aid payments sand ISIR? Or does CA run its own state-level aid programs that skip the federal forms completely (and botching the ID verification on their own)?
Or are all of these effectively stolen IDs? Where the FAFSA and ISIR are for real people (but people who aren't actually students)?
The article is missing a LOT of details, what a waste of time.
shusaku
Identity theft is relatively common, so I’m not sure if their aid system should be considerable especially vulnerable or not.
lolinder
There's no such thing as identity theft, it's all bank fraud or in this case student aid fraud. "Identity theft" is a term coined by banks to try to make it sound like random people should have to deal with the fallout of the banks' bad identity verification practices.
If the student aid system verifies identity by, for example, just validating that the applicants know a single 9-digit number that after the Equifax breach should be considered public information, that is a critical problem with their identity verification system and it should be patched.
bee_rider
We need a better phrase, like “impersonation fraud” or something, which focuses on the two parties actually involved. You can’t actually steal somebody’s identity of course, they are just an uninvolved third party.
atoav
Interestingly enough the US seems to have between 1.5 and 6 times more of such cases than Europe (the numbers I found are a little bit fuzzy and use probably different methodology when collected, so this could well be an entirely statistical phenomenom).
I was curious, because I (living in central Europe) could not think of a single case of identity theft in my social circles or a prominent case I ever heard of.
leereeves
I agree, it sounds like the problem is in the way financial aid is granted.
Is this (as the headline suggests) more of a problem in California? Does California have particularly generous and vulnerable financial aid?
gedy
California does give financial aid to undocumented/illegal immigrants, so verification can be difficult and touchy subject:
https://www.csac.ca.gov/college-financial-aid-and-safety-for...
int_19h
If they truly don't have any means to verify that the person receiving the grant is who they think it is, this sounds broken by design.
Aeolun
Shouldn't the process of getting that financial aid make them registered?
null
carlosjobim
Why would any of the involved parties care at all? It's not their money being sent to scammers, so it's not a problem for them.
autoexec
Students aren't able to get into classes when bots are taking all the spots. Teachers actually care about educating students so they don't want to have their time wasted by bots. There's only so much loan money to go around and the schools want to get that cash into their own pockets, but the schools don't get any when scammers are running off with it to funnel money to other countries or whatever else they're doing. Similarly, students who really need the help can't get it when it all goes to someone who isn't interested in paying for education.
Schools have another problem with "ghost students" in general which is that there's a lot of other stuff going on at schools that depend on real students being there. Vendors, club activities, sporting/social events, nearby bars and restaurants etc. There's an entire ecosystem on and around campus which is created or supported by real students. All that non-classroom stuff helps make the school more attractive to students and often directly generates income for the school as well, but little of it would exist or be worthwhile if the campus is a ghost town.
toast0
When I was at community college (~ 2000), if the section you wanted was full at registration, you'd register in another section (in case), but show up at the section you wanted and talk with the instructor. Depending on the course/instructor, you'd might need to show up for the first week and anybody who hadn't attended in the first week would be dropped and those who had attended but weren't registered could take those spaces. Sometimes the instructor would do that at the first meeting. You'd go to the section you were registered in as well, and let the instructor know there (sometimes it'd be the same instructor and then maybe you wouldn't need to attend both sections). Not ideal, but registration order was based on completed credits, and after one semester it got a lot easier to get into the sections you wanted; students (real or not) that haven't completed any classes get to pick sections last, so once you've shown you're willing and able to complete classes, you're good. (Protip: check if taking any class in the summer will help you get into the sections you want in the fall)
At that time, you could drop classes in the first two weeks for a full refund.
setr
The lost money comes from the taxpayer. But that loan money was going to be used to pay the school; and presumably if the student doesn’t have that loan money, they ain’t gonna be paying (or attending, because they can no longer afford to do so). So schools should care. And the students should care — they don’t get to join the school. And the government should care — their funds just went into a void. And the taxpayers should care — their money just went into a void, and some number of their kids just got denied college access.
What involved party shouldn’t care?
thaumasiotes
> But that loan money was going to be used to pay the school; and presumably if the student doesn’t have that loan money, they ain’t gonna be paying (or attending, because they can no longer afford to do so). So schools should care.
I don't think this is a correct model of the situation. As far as I know, it isn't the case that there's a fixed budget for student loan disbursals and all of it will go to some school or other unless it gets stolen. Rather, if more people ask for student loans, more money gets disbursed, and if fewer people ask for loans, less money gets disbursed. So the amount of money the school gets wouldn't be affected.
permo-w
>The lost money comes from the taxpayer
not necessarily
s1artibartfast
I think they're making a cynical comment about incentives and government waste.
There's some truth to this if the people in charge of the process are not the ones paying.
I've seen gratuitous waste in government due to indifference. It can happen in the private sector too.
pbohun
Whose money do you think is being sent to scammers?
Also, decent human beings care about things that are unjust/immoral/unethical regardless if it affects them or not.
carlosjobim
> Whose money do you think is being sent to scammers?
I guess the tax payers money? Otherwise they would have nipped this in the bud.
> Also, decent human beings care about things that are unjust/immoral/unethical regardless if it affects them or not.
Decent people are sometimes quite far between, most people would never lift a finger even an inch if they don't have anything to gain personally.
nh23423fefe
Some people take pride in their work.
jancsika
> Of the 40 students enrolled in her popular introduction to real estate course, Pugh said she’d normally drop three to five from her roster who don’t start the course or make contact with her at the start of the semester.
Key word: "popular."
A dean's most important question: "How are we gonna pay the bills?"
Well, if the number of ghost students in a department's popular class just doubled and eventually get dropped from the roll, that means the number of bona fide students completing that class also went down.
If you're the professor of that class, you want to make it crystal clear to the dean that this is an otherwise popular class getting hit by a scam, and not a class that's organically becoming less popular year over year.
Communicating this distinction to the dean is paramount-- the prof's pay and job stability depends on the scam being addressed for next quarter/semester. And those concerns bubble up from dept dean up the administration.
I mean, as I write this I start to wonder the opposite of you-- how could anyone in this chain of authority not prioritize addressing this issue?
alistairSH
Uh, federal financial aid is absolutely all of our money (acquired from taxes).
And loan fraud just drives up the cost of loans for everybody else.
And the overhead of fighting this eats into school resources, driving up the tuition that's forcing the loan in the first place.
And as a professor/instructor, that's money that could go to funding more tenured positions (vs adjunct spots or other "non-permanent" teachers).
So, sure, without putting much thought into it, an individual might not care. But after any thought at all, one should see that fraud drives up the cost for all of us.
carlosjobim
> And the overhead of fighting this eats into school resources
Not if they continue to ignore it, because once again, it's not their money being sent to scammers.
> And loan fraud just drives up the cost of loans for everybody else.
Doesn't sound like a problem for the involved parties.
> So, sure, without putting much thought into it, an individual might not care. But after any thought at all, one should see that fraud drives up the cost for all of us.
You might care. I might care. But I guarantee that the involved parties do not care for even three seconds of their day about it. They have much more important things to think about, such as what color of the ballons for their kids next birthday party.
miki123211
I don't know what CCSF's problem is, but this is the second major fraud case I know of that involves them specifically.
A few years ago (this was pre-pandemic, around 2018-19), you could buy those "unlimited-storage, never-expiring" Google Drive accounts online. I was curious about how they worked, and it turned out a few of my less knowledgeable friends had some. The ones I could get my hands on were all @ccsf.edu addresses, with randomly-generated but somewhat plausible-sounding names and surnames (something like "Zyx Ngehirda" or "Anqomi Horezis", names made up but it's roughly what they looked like).
From what I could figure out from these, I think you were able to sign up as a CCSF student with very little verification, and as long as you didn't take any courses, you didn't have to pay. You still got all your accounts set up though, including Google Drive, and you could sell those for a profit.
The accounts weren't actually as unlimited as the seller claimed, I asked a few months later and they were apparently shut down by that point. One person reported receiving an angry email (on that Google account) notifying them that the account will be removed if they don't sign up for a course.
This scam must have been heavily automated and very widespread, the accounts were sold on Allegro (Polish Amazon) for $1-$2. It's possible other institutions were involved too, the few accounts I knew of were bought at roughly the same time, so they could have come from the same "batch."
paxys
> the office estimates that 0.21% of the system’s financial aid was fraudulently disbursed, the spokesperson said
The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero. If your financial aid process actually has 0% fraud then it is guaranteed that (1) you spent more resources vetting applicants than saving from fraud and (2) a large chunk of deserving applications were denied in the process just to be extra careful. So the 0.21% seems pretty reasonable to me.
kassner
I think that depends on the ratio between detected and undetected fraud. Some fraud will only be detected once they find no one to pay for loans, or when the person being collected has go thru an insurmountable bureaucracy to prove they never enrolled it.
Given the evolution of the technology, I’d say 0.21% is neither static and guaranteed to raise significantly in the to near future if the identification issues don’t get solved overnight.
rdtsc
Like others mentioned, they describe the 'agonizing' problem, but don't explain how it works. The most charitable read is it's just plain old lazy journalism, the least charitable is they are hiding something and dancing around the issue.
What makes SF colleges susceptible to this? Are they implying it's incredibly easy for anyone to fill in a form online without any ID or verification and they get aid? Ok, why was that allowed? I am guessing it's to make it easier for people, to apply but also it looks good for enrollment -- "look at how many students we have". Being strict about verifying applications would mean also lower enrollment numbers. Some classes might not have enough students and would get cancelled. So someone there and possibly many someones looked the other way for many years.
Let's take a look:
https://www.ccsf.edu/apply-ccsf
> Starting February 2, 2024, CCCApply will be integrating identity verification through ID.me. ID.me will help protect student identities and prevent fraudulent students from taking seats in classes at CCSF. This is an optional feature for students.
> For students who cannot use ID.me, click on “Verify Later” to skip the ID.me verification process.
Ok, so still no need for any ID at all, it's all optional.
Yes, they want homeless or undocumented people from no valid identity documentation (from country of origin), minors? to have access. Ok, that's laudable, but shouldn't there be some kind of in person verification at least. I guess "verify later" is that part and it's skipped.
If you want to apply then you're funneled to either federal student aid, or California Dream act aid
https://www.ccsf.edu/paying-college/financial-aid-office/how...
One of those probably make it easier to apply to with a bot and without a valid ID. It would be nice of the article did that research instead of relying on random people do to it for them.
rahimnathwani
This article from 2014 explains it better: https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/pell-grant-fr...
rdtsc
That's a good summary, thanks! It covers Pell Grants well.
> A former college president and financial aid director in Atlanta used the names of former students and individuals who never attended the college to fraudulently obtain $5 million in grants.10 ... In another case, two former financial aid advisers and a tax preparation business operator in Chicago were charged with filing fake tax returns to obtain nearly $1.5 million in financial aid for 75 students over a 2-year period.
That's interesting. Maybe it's worth taking a closer look at the college administration? They have both the access, the knowledge, the opportunity and even the official motive - to bolster admission numbers.
Molitor5901
I agree, I think it's dancing around the issue of identification, possibly undocumented persons, international students and cultural sensitivity. To push for greater identity verification could be interpreted by some as leaning in towards the mandatory ID political issue. Basically, schools don't want to be seen supporting mandatory ID because it makes them look aligned with the conservatives/Trump.
QuadmasterXLII
It’s not really about looks. If you collect this data, and enroll a student who is seeking asylum, the current administration will attempt to get this data from you to send your student to life in prison in El Salvador. Which is an impact a bit beyond looking aligned. (Of course, reasonable people can disagree about whether life in prison is an appropriate punishment for seeking asylum through legal channels)
rdtsc
> If you collect this data, and enroll a student who is seeking asylum
> a student who is seeking asylum, the current administration will attempt to get this data from you to send your student to life in prison in El Salvador.
That could make sense at one level, yeah. But doesn't US CIS already have contact information for all who applied for asylum in order to process the asylum application? And besides, this doesn't seem like an issue that just started this year.
gotoeleven
Surely there is something that can be done in between "Giving them free taxpayer money without verifying that they exist" and "sending them to prison in el salvador for the crime of applying for asylum"
paxys
I see mentions of "bots" and "AI" all over the article but is there a single actual example that shows that the fake students are AI bots? As opposed to the much simpler explanation that real people are signing up, collecting aid and then ghosting?
SayItAintSo2
This is easy money for schools, students and faculty. Everyone except the taxpayers are making money. I taught at a CC and this went on for years-real students enrolling and not attending, false identities enrolled, no mandatory drops for students not attending or doing work. Why? Well, between Pell grants, scholarships and other grant sources, "students" are making 10-30K tax free, the school keeps all the payments if the "student" stays enrolled through census date as well as keeping all of their grant money, indirect and directs on TRIO grants, etc. Faculty sign these students out after the census date, thus having an EASY class(and breaking the law--that form requires a date of last attendance). I was not in CA and I watched dozens of students do this and the college was "blind" to the fraud...very convenient. The 'agonizing' problem is the scrutiny on a multi-million/billion dollar scam. We need students in these classes to call and report to ED when their class shows 20 enrolled but only 2 turn up each class. Offer them some student loan forgiveness and make then aware of what it costs them.
toast0
> In the 2024 calendar year, the [California Community College] chancellor’s office estimates that 31.4% of its college applications were fraudulent, a spokesperson for the office told SFGATE. The chancellor’s office also considers it fraudulent both to apply to a college with no intention of attending any institution and to enroll in a college with no intention of actually showing up.
If these are the criteria, it seems hard to distinguish high school seniors that are going go through the motions, but don't actually intend to go to college from people who are trying to pocket financial aid without doing the time in the classroom. (Is it financial aid fraud if you legitimately qualify for the aid, and show up to the classroom with no intent to pass or graduate? If the aid is non-recourse, it might be reasonable as a person to do so)
Specifically for California Community Colleges, the stakes are so low for enrollment, I can see a lot of people enrolling just in case, then deciding not to go and forgetting to notify the college. California Community Colleges are an amazing resource, though; I think more people should use them, and more states should build out their community colleges using California as an example. When I was in school in ~2000ish, Wisconsin community college charged the same amount per credit at UW and the Wisconsin Community College system; which seems like a great way to get people not to use community colleges.
SoftTalker
And elsewhere it says "the office estimates that 0.21% of the system’s financial aid was fraudulently disbursed" which sounds pretty low and maybe not worth worrying about. "Zero fraud" sounds nice but probably costs more to attain than it's worth.
null
downrightmike
If only that college taught a statistics class or had a math dept that could explain this.
jfengel
The math is easy. Getting people to accept what it means is damn near impossible.
stretchwithme
There've been so many scams in California, I suspect someone is designing scams into these programs. Whether it's unemployment, Calpers pensions or student loans, it seems California government is allergic to common sense.
qoez
> "Bots don’t act on their own, there is almost always a human behind it"
Almost always? There always is
dullcrisp
Almost certainly.
timewizard
Setup a bot. Then die.
koolba
Depends on how far up the chain you go. I can see some oddball situations created when vibe coding meets unsecured AWS access keys. Imagine a rogue prompt deploying a self perpetuating worm that creates scam apps and uses the funds to create more scams.
barbazoo
Gonna fall apart at the first hallucinated API call.
rahimnathwani
California determines how much money each community college gets using the 'Student Centered Funding Formula' (SCFF), which has three parts:
- 70% based on # students (adjusted for whether they're part time or full time)
- 20% based on # students who receive Pell Grants or similar
- 10% based on student outcomes like graduation or transfers to four-year colleges
Fake students would inflate the first two. So, even if fake students deflate the final item (eventually), what incentive do community college leaders (who presumably care about the number of staff they're able to employ) have to expel fake students, or even to be honest about their prevalence?
Stealthisbook
There are so many layers of fraud to make this scam work. Fake enrollment seems easy enough, but financial aid requires a valid identity with real tax info. If you've already stolen an identity to snag a tax refund, I guess might as well file a FAFSA. But, the lion's share of financial aid goes directly to the school while only any remainder after tuition and fees goes to the student. I feel like unless this is happening at scale committed by relatively few actors, the return isn't worth the effort... if there isn't some further institutional coordination helping things along
SayItAintSo2
At a community college, the lion's share of aid goes to the student for books, living expenses, etc. If they get a maximum Pell(~6K), a scholarship for underserved(~3K) and student loans (upwards of 10k) for 4k tuition, they are pocketing quite a bit. The community college can then dip into the state and national funding (TRIO, job readiness, local employer support). One student eligible for financial aid at a community college is worth about 3x what one student paying their own way is worth. How difficult would it be to verify identity and enforce attendance? THey don't to inflate their numbers.
darkwizard42
This problem feels like the scalping problem with concert tickets. Make the person enrolled show up with valid ID at a registration event after classes start. Have a few options for when to attend and verify in person.
This would root out all fraud and feels relatively low barrier for a community college student who would presumably be in the community.
alistairSH
Kind of defeats the purpose of online classes. Some of the students could be many hours from campus.
Either way, this shouldn't get as far as it does. You can't just sign up for a class and expect financial aid - there are forms to submit (usually prior to enrollment) to verify ID, income, parental income, veteran status, and a whole host of other factors that impact the FA award amounts and whether that FA is a grant (often federal) or a loan (sometimes gov-backed, sometimes not).
darkwizard42
This is for community college though which I believe only allows access to the local community and provides aid to that sub group.
Also I disagree with the premise of online classes not requiring some portion of enrollment being in person. The two can be compatible and probably drops this to zero.
KerrAvon
I don't think you even need to go that far -- the problem seems to be on the side of the verification of financial aid being too lenient, right? How is that vetting breaking down? The typical financial aid forms and process is a pain in the neck. Money people usually require all sorts of documentation before they actually send you money.
dmurray
Increasing the amount of documentation disproportionately hurts real students (or real social welfare claimants, etc). The scammers can figure out getting the fake documentation once and then scale the process - that's literally their business.
To deter scammers without the real applicants paying for it, you need quality, not quantity: proof of identity that is harder to fake.
mistrial9
people who are most familiar with what exactly is needed to pass, are the administrators themselves. This is a corruption problem coupled with automation. source: california resident
darkwizard42
Probably. But I suspect for the average person community college is trying to help, more documentation is more onerous and actually harder to get right. Instead an in person verification would be less costly for them to engage in and more understandable.
It seems like they're attacking the wrong end of the problem by trying to detect fake students in the classrooms. If the issue is that people are signing up for financial aid and then disappearing with the cash they'd be better off making sure that the people who get financial aid actually are who they say they are before sending them money, or better yet stop giving cash as financial aid and instead give some type of credit that can only be spent on/at the school.
Once scammers can't get access to the money the problem of bots in the classroom will mostly go away.