Ghost students are bogus college applications created by fraudsters to receive financial aid, leading to an unprecedented influx of “ghost students”.
via entrepreneur:
Richard Valicenti, 64, received an out-of-the-ordinary check in the mail last summer. It was $1,400 for a Pell Grant to attend Saddleback College in Orange County, CA. Valicenti, a radiation oncologist at UC Davis, was well-beyond his college years and also had “never heard” of the college he was allegedly attending and getting federal aid for, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
While Valicenti was perplexed, college admissions directors and administrators are all too familiar with the situation. Valicenti’s identity had been stolen by criminals attempting to receive financial aid by creating bogus college applications — a practice that has resulted in an unprecedented influx of “ghost students.”
Ghost students are essentially bots created by fraudsters that take advantage of the application system in hopes of receiving government aid.
About 20% of California community college applications are fictitious, according to the state Chancellor’s Office, per The Chronicle, and may be an easy target for criminals as community colleges in the state do not require a social security number to apply and are required to accept any applicant with a high school diploma.
Fake enrollments are used to steal financial aid, crowd out legitimate students, and create hours of work for colleges.
via sfchronicle:
Months after a mysterious check for $1,400 landed in Richard Valicenti’s mailbox last summer, the U.S. Department of Education notified him that the money was a mistake — an overpayment of the $3,000 Pell grant he had used to attend Saddleback College in Orange County.
“I told them I never applied for a Pell,” said Valicenti, a 64-year-old radiation oncologist at UC Davis who had never even heard of Saddleback.
Valicenti’s name is among the stolen identities used in thousands of fraudulent attempts to enroll in community colleges in California and across the country since classes shifted online during the pandemic. The aim is to steal financial aid.
Fake enrollments also crowd out legitimate students and create hours of work for colleges trying to eliminate “ghost students.” Colleges that disburse grants to fraudsters are on the hook to repay the feds.
Today, about 20% of California’s community college applications are scams: more than 460,000 of the 2.3 million requests to the state’s online application system since July alone, says the state Chancellor’s Office, which oversees the 116 campuses. Community colleges are required to accept any student in the state with a high school diploma, and a Social Security number is not required to apply.