Bots gaming the financial aid system are overwhelming enrollment for asynchronous online classes. Legitimate students are unable to enroll as classes fill quickly, delaying graduation. Once the classes start and fake students disappear, some classes are cancelled due to insufficient enrollment.
Here are two articles on the subject:
Jakob McWhinney wrote an article for The Hechinger Report titled As ‘bot’ students continue to flood in, community colleges struggle to respond (29 April 2025).
« Community colleges first started seeing bots managed by fraud rings invade classes around 2021. Those bots seem to generally be real people managing networks of fake student aliases. The more they manage, the more financial aid money they can potentially steal. »
« Four years later, there are no clear signs it’s slowing down. During 2024 alone, fraudulent students at California community colleges swindled more than $11 million in state and federal financial aid dollars — more than double what was stolen the year prior. »
« Last year, the [California] state chancellor’s office estimated 25 percent of community college applicants were bots. »
« Asynchronous online courses tend to be the heaviest hit. »
Sydney Sakamoto wrote an article for The Union titled Artificial intelligence software bought to detect fraudulent enrollment at El Camino College (10 March 2025).
« In 2023, El Camino College social science professor Akello Stone started a semester with a full roster of students, only to discover that 40 of them were not real. Fraudulent enrollment has only worsened since then. »
« On Feb. 1, the El Camino Community College District’s Board of Trustees approved a $54,000 subscription purchase of LightleapAI Fraud Detection Module, an artificial intelligence software designed to detect fraudulent student applications. »
« Stone will think classes appear to be full, only to find that many of the students are not real, which leaves unexpected openings for legitimate students who may have been turned away. »
« Stone said he has to manually remove dozens of fraudulent students each semester. This term alone, he removed 45 students across three classes. »
« This semester, ECC placed over 4,000 verification holds on student accounts, with the majority being fraudulent, according to Carlos Lopez, vice president of Academic Affairs. “We’ve been hit with a lot of fraud this term. I mean a lot of fraud. It’s impacted us and the colleges around us,” Lopez said during the Feb. 18 Academic Senate meeting. “LACCD put in a verification system where everyone has to show ID to be able to even start the registration process.” »
« David Brown, assistant director of Financial Aid, confirmed there are many cases of fraudulent enrollment at ECC, and that it has worsened over the last two years… He said that fraudulent applicants are individuals attempting to exploit the system for financial gain. »
« “They’re stolen identities,” [David Brown, assistant director of Financial Aid,] said. »
« Many students have struggled to enroll in online classes this semester as waitlists filled up quickly, leaving them scrambling for alternatives. »
« Fire science major Enoch Joo, 18, faced a similar setback, unable to enroll in geology, photography and political science. As a result, his graduation was delayed by a semester. »
« Savannah Campbell, an 18-year-old mathematics major, was unable to enroll in an online computer science class this semester and expressed frustration over fraudulent students taking spaces. “Sad. I wanted to take that class,” Campbell said. »
Articles of Interest 