College administrators grappling with the ghostly duplicity of false student enrollments and associated fraudulent practices, casting a dark shadow over educational institutions.
Rampant Enrollment Fraud by 'Ghost Students' Plagues U.S. Colleges
Ghostly specters have haunted countless horror stories, causing chaos and turmoil. Unlike these fictional entities, the ghost students looming over American colleges are real, and their presence is causing a substantial amount of havoc and financial loss for educational institutions across the country.
Ghost students are bogus students whose applications are often automated by fraudsters, with the intent to swindle government aid. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly all higher educational institutions have migrated to online classes, providing easy targets for fraudsters. Community colleges, particularly, have become primary victims, as both public and private schools are slow to adopt cybersecurity defenses, leaving them vulnerable to enrollment fraud.
The U.S. Department of Education's decision to halt verification of household income in response to the national health crisis has inadvertently intensified the situation. The combination of these factors has resulted in a deluge of applicants who will never attend a single class in the past couple of years.
According to estimates from California's State Chancellor's office, roughly 20% of California community college applications - over 460,000 - are fabricated. After removing ghost students from L.A. Pierce College's spring enrollment, the student body dropped by more than 35%. If these fake students, using bot-powered applications and stolen or synthetic identities, manage to secure enrollment, they can claim Pell grants and other federal college subsidies, appropriating money meant for needy students.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Justice Department indicted three women in Los Angeles on enrollment fraud charges, alleging they used the identities of California prison inmates and other victims to falsely enroll in an Orange County-based community college, stealing nearly $1 million in federal student loans.
Although the alarming statistics demonstrate the scale of the problem, experts warn that this could be only a glimpse of the enrollment fraud iceberg, as many institutions are still unaware of the issue and lack the necessary identity verification processes and tools. Furthermore, with the escalating number of data breaches and subsequent proliferation of dark web marketplaces peddling stolen personal data, fraudsters now have unparalleled access to personally identifiable information, making such scams increasingly easier to execute.
Thankfully, identity verification tools, currently applied by large financial institutions, online marketplaces, and government entities to verify identities, can effectively root out these ghost students. Mitek's Verified Identity Platform (MiVIP), in particular, secures the confirmation of an individual's identity using multiple cross-referencing sources. Government-issued IDs can be checked against live selfies, email addresses can be verified against databases, and personal data can even be matched against third-party dark web data to determine if the information provided in the application comes from a known compromised identity. By compiling these and numerous other verifications, it becomes nearly impossible for fraudsters to slip past the enrollment officer's door.
Additionally, the implementation of biometric enrollment and authentication provides an extra layer of security. Ghost students are understandably reluctant to participate in biometric processes. For institutions wishing to learn more about enhancing their identity verification practices to maintain a ghost-free enrollment process, Mitek would be delighted to engage in dialogue.
References:
[1] High schools in Oklahoma (https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2021/02/08/what-exactly-are-ghost-students-theres-more-than-one-definition-in-oklahoma/) & Maryland (https://komonews.com/news/crisis-in-the-classroom/ghost-students-districts-receiving-funding-for-pupils-who-arent-in-class) in the news for falsifying student numbers.
[2] California community colleges (https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/college-aid-scam-18119117.php)
[3] Pierce College in California (https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/ghost-students-are-stealing-thousands-in-federal-aid/453631)
[4] (https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/three-women-indicted-alleged-scheme-used-prison-inmates-identities-fraudulently-obtain)
[5] (https://cybernews.com/security/whats-your-identity-worth-on-dark-web/)
- In the continuing battle against fraud, educators and learners alike can benefit from the implementation of robust identity verification processes in online education, similar to those used in other sectors like finance and commerce, to prevent ghost students and secure Fair access to general news and education-and-self-development resources.
- Beyond the realm of online education, the dark web's burgeoning commerce in stolen identities poses a significant challenge to crime-and-justice agencies, threatening the integrity of various sectors, including higher learning, and raising the urgency for collaborative, comprehensive solutions among law enforcement, educational institutions, and online education platforms.
