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When I first heard from an acquitance who works in California’s community college system that classes were full of fake students, it seemed surreal, but what’s really incredible is the growth rate here.
In 2021, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office reported that about 20% of college applicants were likely fake. In January 2024, the state said it was up to about 25%.
Now it’s around 34%, according to the most recent data from the last calendar year.
“Those are all the ones that are stopped,” said John Hetts, executive vice chancellor for the data team at the chancellor’s office.
Many are not.
Consider that California’s community colleges went from 1 in 5 fake applicants in 2021, to 1 in 4 last year to 1 in 3 this year.
What accounts for that massive growth? It’s profitable and AI tools have made it all too easy.
In the last 12 months, colleges reported giving more than $10 million in federal dollars to fake students and over $3 million in state money. Data from the first few months of 2025 show that colleges have already given away more than $3 million in federal aid and over $700,000 in state dollars.
There are multiple ways to stop this, but the most obvious is to stop funding ‘virtual’ students who don’t show up for in-person classes. You can have student aid or Zoom class, but not both.
It’s all too easy to run bots out of Pakistan or India, collect the cash and then just have the bots ChatGPT this way through classes.
And at this rate of growth, soon the majority of California community college students will be fake. If you think that’s an exageration, calculate
The current trend line is that 40% of applications will be fake by 2026 and 50% will be fake by 2027.
By 2028, a majority of California community college applications will be fake. And we’ll be subsdizing foreign scammers to ‘educate’ the youth.
Actually, your article makes me want to become a scammer. Do they still have Pell Grants and Stafford loans? Sign me up! I’m old but not too old to spend the money.
Junior college tuition is cheap. No federal and no State financial aid should ever be given out to anyone.
Harvard, Stanford and the other big hate America factories should be taxed off the face of the Earth, though.
Community colleges are fine. If you want a degree. Small business owners do MUCH better than your average college grad. A degree in feminist studies or Medieval Gnostic poetry? Shit.
Sow what’s the point of college? Higher education is pretty much a scam. But if the Ivys want to drain their endowments on fake students fine by me. Those sheepskins won’t be worth the paper they are printed on.
One would think this would easily be preventable. For example, make people show up in person with valid photo identification to apply for the loan. Knowing about this scam clearly demonstrates the California government’s utter sustain for its taxpayers. But they keep voting the party that runs that government into power so I guess they like being fleeced.
I live in California and our Governor News-Scam is a blundering Idiot
Fake students – fake education – seems a match made in hell
Indoctrinations into marxist commie and anti-American, anti-Israel, antisemitism – that’s not an education that’s pure destruction.
Technical, trade schools should get the grants – those students will get out making higher wages and more likely to become entrepreneurs. I know this personally, I went to 5 technical trade schools and I am a self made millionaire a couple times over – But that’s just me – and my research, study, reading and mentoring by a few to change my , to that of an entrepreneur and learn money management and investing
When I graduated high school in 1961 I so desperately wanted to go to college and study journalism. Neither of my parents were college educated and refused to beleive that a “girl should go to college”. They got me married off as soon as they could and it was not until 1968 when i got my divorce did I dare to try to go to college. In January of 1969 I entered a California Jr. College. I was the first single mom and brought my daughter with me to class. Gave her a seat and a colloring book and demanded she be quiet. THAT university saw to it that I got some student loans. They believed then in women going to school and even took a chance on a single mom. If it was not for that California community college I would not have ever had a chance at an education. Today, I have two degrees–pursued my dream for years once class a year so I could pay cash and did not have any more student loans. Of all the universities both myself and my husband have studied at or been employed by, it is that Jr. College to whom we will donate.
The answer is, everyone must be on camera for the lectures and everyone must take exams in person! If you are not in the same city as the college then you must go to a testing facility.
The real problem is that these UNIs make a shit ton of money with these scams.
It’s no different than the Black/Women’s Study degrees that cost them very little to perform but reap them huge profits. And because no one every gets a job based on these degrees, no one cares how poorly educated these graduates are.