CHE
Five years after the pandemic hit, California community colleges are still battling one of the most nefarious problems to surface after courses moved online en masse. Criminals continue to find ways to evade various checkpoints in their pursuit of financial aid and other benefits that come with being a college student….These fraudsters — sometimes called ghost students, Pell runners, or straw students — are hitting the system’s central application portal at an alarming rate. While spam filters stop many of them, colleges are spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars finding further fraud. Instructors, as the last line of defense, are struggling to balance due diligence, good teaching practices, and student support.