California community colleges flag broad attempted aid scam

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Officials have detected more than 65,000 fake financial aid applications to California community colleges in what is believed to be a massive attempted financial aid scam.

The Los Angeles Times reports Thursday that the fraudulent applications were filed at most of the system's 116 campuses on behalf of first-time applicants who were older than 30 and earned less than $40,000. A student aid official detected the applications on a routine check of federal financial aid records while faculty members were flagging unusual surges in class enrollment that they suspected could be driven by fake students or bots.

“We were kind of scratching our heads going, ‘Did or didn’t 60,000 extra older adult students really attempt to apply to community colleges here in the last few months?’” said Patrick Perry, director of policy, research and data for the California Student Aid Commission, who alerted college officials to the issue last week.

Since then, Perry said the number of suspected fake applications has exceeded 65,000. He said he believes the problem was caught before significant amounts of aid were distributed to scammers.

Officials at California Community Colleges declined to say whether financial aid was disbursed to fake students. The system, which has received more than $1.6 billion in emergency COVID-19 relief for low income students, is investigating.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General is also investigating and declined comment.

The fake applications were detected at 105 campuses. The largest numbers were reported at Cerritos, Pasadena, Chaffey, Merced and Antelope Valley.

Two professors at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton said they became suspicious upon seeing their online class enrollment surge in early August,...