Fake Student Fraud in Community Colleges

Reporting on the rise of fake students enrolling in community college courses:

The bots’ goal is to bilk state and federal financial aid money by enrolling in classes, and remaining enrolled in them, long enough for aid disbursements to go out. They often accomplish this by submitting AI-generated work. And because community colleges accept all applicants, they’ve been almost exclusively impacted by the fraud.

The article talks about the rise of this type of fraud, the difficulty of detecting it, and how it upends quite a bit of the class structure and learning community.

Slashdot thread.

Tags: AI, fraud, schools

Posted on May 6, 2025 at 7:03 AM • 6 Comments

Comments

Andrew L Duane • May 6, 2025 8:02 AM

I am confused by how this profits the bot farms. Financial aid generally only covers the cost of tuition and maybe course materials. These are costs they have to pay to the college to enroll. So at best this seems like a break-even proposition. What am I missing?

Tom • May 6, 2025 8:21 AM

It looks to me like requiring students to actually present in person at the college once at the start of each course should more or less eliminate this. Making them turn up with ID would do even better but I suspect it’s not necessary.

Snarki, child of Loki • May 6, 2025 8:41 AM

Dept. of Education (DoE) started requiring “initial course participation” in college classes, back in 2023-ish? Early in the term, instructors need to check who is actually in the class, and enter it in enrollment systems.

After hearing about it, it seemed like a useless busywork requirement, MAYBE to determine if a student could legitimately drop before tuition is charged.

But this points out that there may be a more subtle reason. If it’s to prevent scams, I expect Trump/Musk to kill it off PDQ.

not important • May 6, 2025 5:31 PM

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/s1aenrpxgl

=AI-based system called Shomo Shamayim
the software-based system provides early warnings about drone launches based on historical flight patterns. “Using AI, we can detect trends and intentions. The more data the system absorbs, the more insights we gain,” T. told Calcalist.

The system integrates data from the Air Force’s control units, including launch times, locations, flight trajectories, drone types, altitude, and speed. It now contains data on dozens of drone types, mostly originating from Lebanon. Since its deployment in October 2024 during intense fighting with Hezbollah, it has undergone three major updates and is now being rolled out in the southern sector to monitor smuggling attempts from Egypt and Jordan via drones.=

Dave D • May 7, 2025 1:15 PM

Wouldn’t this scam need a supply of U.S. Social Security Numbers?

I mean presumably the department that pays the support would want some kind of indication that the “students” are actual humans?

And then they should cross-reference those SSNs to what-ever numbers are reported by other schools. Now of course we have had so many data breaches that most of the U.S. population is likely listed somewher on Dark Net. So in the end maybe it does not matter?

jelo 117 • May 12, 2025 12:44 PM

I don’t really see the problem. The AI wrote the qualifying papers, now let them take the course. Can’t this just be an aspect of training LLM ?

Schneier on Security

Fake Student Fraud in Community Colleges

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