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California


FAKE STUDENT BOT ACCOUNTS AT CALIFORNIA COLLEGES TIED TO SUSPECTED COVID-19
RELIEF SCAM

An unknown number of “bot accounts” have affected the state’s community
colleges.
(AFP/Getty Images)
By Colleen Shalby, 
Teresa Watanabe
Aug. 31, 2021 7:30 AM PT
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The California Community Colleges system is investigating potentially widespread
fraud involving fake “bot students” enrolled in active courses in what officials
suspect is a scam to obtain financial aid or COVID-19 relief grants.

The 116-campus system is beefing up internal reporting and security measures
after finding that 20% of recent traffic on its main portal for online
applications was “malicious and bot-related,” according to a memo issued Monday
by Valerie Lundy-Wagner, interim vice chancellor of digital innovation and
infrastructure.

Nearly 15% of that traffic was caught by new software called Imperva Advanced
Bot Detection, which was installed last month, and the matter remained of “grave
concern,” she said. The memo follows a previous warning that Lundy-Wagner issued
in June.

California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley said at least six
campuses have reported an unusual spike in enrollment attempts involving
possibly fake students. But officials have not yet been able to identify where
the “pings” are coming from or how many colleges are involved.

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They declined to comment on whether financial aid has been disbursed to
scammers, saying the investigation is ongoing.

The system has reported the concerns to the U.S. Department of Education’s
Office of Inspector General, which is also investigating, a campus official
said.

“I’m certainly alarmed,” Oakley said in an interview Monday. “There’s lots of
unscrupulous players right now trying to access and exploit benefits, not unlike
what’s happened with unemployment insurance and any number of other benefits
that have been made available recently because of the pandemic.

“But I’m confident that the colleges have been able to identify the activity and
are working to mitigate the risk to campuses,” added Oakley, who is on temporary
leave to work on higher education issues for the Biden administration.



At San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, faculty said they started noticing an
unusual spike in enrollment for online classes last week, the first week of
classes. Upon closer look, the college determined that an unknown number of
“pseudo-students” had signed up for courses, according to Alex Breitler,
director of marketing, communications and outreach.

“It looks like a person or group of some kind created pseudo-students and
enrolled them into classes, presumably with the end goal of securing financial
aid. We’re still trying to determine the extent of all this, but it does look
like it was a sophisticated endeavor on the part of whoever did it,” Breitler
told The Times. “We’re making plans to drop all of these pseudo-students, for
lack of a better term, that closely fits the pattern we’re seeing. We’ll drop
them from classes, we’ll block them from services and financial aid.”

It’s unclear how many fake accounts were created, but Breitler said he believes
it was a significant number.

“Our biggest problem right now is that our legitimate students are being taken
care of. That’s why we want to drop these pseudo-students,” Breitler said.

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The Los Rios Community College District, which serves the greater Sacramento
area, said its four colleges — American River College, Cosumnes River College,
Folsom Lake College and Sacramento City College — have been hit with fraudulent
registrations.

“We have a robust daily process in place that identifies enrollments that may be
fraudulent and, after a verification process, we quickly disenroll them and shut
down access to all district and college services,” said Gabe Ross, the
district’s associate vice chancellor.

The nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District was not aware of any
problems involving applications or financial aid, a spokesman said.

It was not clear what financial aid may be involved in the fraud — state-funded
Cal Grants, for instance, or federal COVID-19 emergency relief grants.
California community colleges have so far received more than $1.6 billion in
emergency COVID-19 relief for low-income students. San Joaquin Delta College led
the state’s community colleges in using the greatest share of relief funds for
student grants — giving $1,500 checks to about 4,000 of its lowest-income
students last spring with plans to double that amount this fall, EdSource
reported.

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Los Rios allocated $13 million in federal emergency grants in March 2020 and
expects to deliver an additional $33 million to students this year to help with
food, housing, course materials, technology, healthcare and child care.

Paul Feist, the system’s vice chancellor for communications, said the new
security measures were undertaken in response to rising concerns about suspected
fraudulent activity not only among colleges but also across industries due to
the pandemic-driven shift to greater online operations.

Earlier this year, state officials announced they had confirmed that $11.4
billion in unemployment benefits paid during the COVID-19 pandemic involve fraud
— about 10% of benefits paid — and another 17% are under investigation. The
amount of aid siphoned off by fraudsters nationally surpassed $40 billion last
year.

“Any financial aid fraud is unacceptable and takes away resources for deserving
students looking to improve their lives with a college education,” Feist said.

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In her memo Monday, Lundy-Wagner announced stricter security measures to
minimize the risk of fraud beginning in September. For the first time, all
college districts and their campuses will be required to report monthly the
number of incidents of suspected and confirmed registration fraud, confirmed
number of incidents of financial aid fraud and its dollar value.

Those measures build on enhanced security practices implemented in July,
including the bot-detection software and a new policy requiring colleges to
confirm if applications deemed as “likely fraud” are from real students or not
within two weeks. Unless colleges confirm the applicants are actual students,
the application will be automatically deemed as confirmed fraud and eliminated
from the system.

“It is clear that nationally, bad actors are attempting to take advantage of any
vulnerability across different sectors,” Lundy-Wagner wrote in her memo Monday.
“As the Chancellor’s Office continues to take steps that will reduce information
and cybersecurity threats during the admission and onboarding process, we are
committed to ensuring access.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CaliforniaEducation
Colleen Shalby

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Colleen Shalby is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She previously worked at
PBS NewsHour in Washington, D.C. She’s a graduate of George Washington
University and a native of Southern California.

Teresa Watanabe

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Teresa Watanabe covers education for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the
Times in 1989, she has covered immigration, ethnic communities, religion,
Pacific Rim business and served as Tokyo correspondent and bureau chief. She
also covered Asia, national affairs and state government for the San Jose
Mercury News and wrote editorials for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. A Seattle
native, she graduated from USC in journalism and in East Asian languages and
culture.

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