“Ghosts” kidnapped millions of colleges – and they stop real human students from the classroom

• The fraudsters disguised as thousands of fake students They are flood colleges throughout the United States with requests to join. Students are recorded under stolen or manufactured identities, accepting schools, then fading with financial aid and email addresses that the kidney places that give fraudsters a shell of legitimacy.

Dr. Jenny Kim went to sleep in the budgets and the challenges of joining. She woke up to discover her college, which was invaded by an army of Phantom students.

“When we were beaten in autumn,” said Kim, head of the Santiago Canyon College in California. luck. “They were occupying our waiting lists and they were in our semesters as if they were real human beings – then our real students were saying that they could not enter the classes they needed.”

She said that Kim worked quickly to bring Amnesty International to help protect the college and promote handrails. Kim said that Santiago Canyon ended up dropping more than 10,000 registrations representing thousands of students who were not really students. By the spring of 2025, ghost students registration decreased from 14,000 since the beginning of the spring period to less than 3000.

Ghost students

In all over the colleges and universities of society in America, advanced criminal networks use Amnesty International to spread thousands of “artificial” or “ghosts” – sometimes in the death of the night – to attack colleges. Fry Cram They themselves in registration gates to register and apply illegally to obtain financial assistance. Then ghost students operate seats dedicated to real students – and they resorted to delivering homework just to stick for a long time enough Siphon millions In financial aid before disappearance.

The scope of the plague student is amazing. Jordan told Boris, Vice President of the identity identification company and former Chief of Staff at the White House Federal Information Office, luck More than half of the students who are recorded for lessons in some schools were found to be illegal. Among the Society Base, between 20 % to 60 % of the student applicants are ghosts.

“Imagine a world where 20 % of students are fraudulent,” Boris said. “This is the truth of the scale.”

In one of the colleges, more than 400 different financial aid requests can be tracked into a handful of recycled phone numbers. “It was a digital digital world chasing the school enrollment system,” Boris said.

The scheme has also proven incredibly profitable. According to the Ministry of Education consultativeThe Ministry of Energy analyzes revealed, about $ 30 million have been tracked to people whose identities were used to register in the classroom, and was stripped of about $ 90 million of aid for unqualified students, and about $ 30 million has been tracked for dead people whose identities used to register in the classroom. The issue has become very terrible, the Ministry of Energy Declare This month has found approximately 150,000 identitys suspected of federal aid models and it is now Require The higher institutions to verify the authenticity of applicants for the first time to submit a free request for FBSA forms.

Boris said, “Every dollar that was stolen is a ghost is a dollar that is denying a real student trying to change his life,” Boris said. “This is a miscalculation of public capital that we cannot really bear.”

Under the siege

Laqwacia Simpkins, CEO of Amsimpkins & Associas, which is Edtech that works with colleges and universities to check the student’s identities with A Amsimpkins & Associas, is Edtech that works with colleges and universities to check the student’s identities with A Amsimpkins & Associates, with surgical accuracy, clearer Fraud detection platform It is safe.

Price Bustos, Director of Administrative Systems at the Shafi Al -Qumaa College, called for the period of joining last fall when faculty members reported to go to bed with zero students registered for lessons and wake up to find a full semester and a long wait list.

Michael Fink, chief technology official in Shafi, said the attacks had occurred widely and within minutes. Fink told luck.

Simpses said luck The fraudsters have learned to strike in the weak days in the academic calendar, on holidays or the final dates for registration, coronation, or at the beginning or end of the period when employees are already extended or the systems are monitored more loose.

“They pay hundreds and thousands of records at the same time and overcome the employees,” Sipkins said.

In addition, joining workers and faculty are only, and Simpkins. They are teachers who have not been trained to discover fraud. She added that their abbreviation focuses on arrival and ensuring that real students can enter the classrooms they need, and not in fraud and fake students who are trying to deceive them to achieve illegal financial gains. Simpses said this aspect makes institutions more vulnerable.

She said: “These are people who are adviser to admission who treat requests and want to be able to accept students and give everyone an equal opportunity in education.”

John Van Werine, Vice President of Higher Education at the VITIC consulting company, indicated that the professors deal with a harsh injury from the attacks.

“One of the professors was so excited that their separation was full, and it was not previously to occupy it 100 %, and he believed that they might need to open a second section,” Van Wrien recalls. “When we worked with them as the first week of the chapter continues, we discovered that they are not real people.”

Fabsa follow

In the development of a nightmare, community and technical colleges are seen as low fruits for this Fraud scheme Specifically due to how they are designed to serve and communicate with local communities and the public with the lowest possible number of barriers for entry. Community colleges are often required to accept each qualified student and usually do not impose fees for submission. During the fraud in the financial aid Not new at allBoris said that the frauds themselves have evolved from the seizure of criticism in the era of the epidemic and Bogeyman in the basement of their mother.

“There is an acceleration due to the spread of these automatic technologies,” he said. “These are organized criminal institutions – FRUDs – that come from within the United States, but also at the international level.”

Maurice Simpses, head and co -founder of Amsimpkins says he has identified international frauds operating outside Japan, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nairobi, Kenya, who has repeatedly targeted the United States colleges.

Mike Mogndles, Vice President of Student Services at Mercyid College, said that the attacks specifically in the courses that increase the eligibility of financial aid to the maximum. He said that social sciences and classes online only with large numbers of students who allow many credits or units as much as possible often choose to choose the choice.

In the spring, Mercyid paved about half of the 15,000 initial records that were fraudulent. Among the following segment of about 7500, about 20 % was arrested and removed from the classroom, which liberates a space for real students.

Human cost

In addition to the financial theft, the ghost student epidemic causes graduation from real students from the classroom they need to graduate. Often, students plan their work or child care schedule around the classroom they intend to take-obtaining a lock has led to a series of obstacles.

“When you have a fraudulent people who run seats in the classroom, you have actual students who need to take those classes that they cannot now, and they are an obstacle,” Box said.

However, the scheme continues to develop, as it requires continuous changes in schools used by algorithms to detect ghost students and prevent them from applying for financial aid – which makes the problem more exciting. Many school officials and cyber security experts who were interviewed luck It was reluctant to detect the current signs of ghost students, for fear of this scheme.

In the past 18 months, schools have prevented thousands of robot applicants because they grew up from the same postal address; He had hundreds of similar emails with a difference of two numbers, or had phone numbers and email addresses that were created moments before applying to register.

Morris Simpses noticed this year’s rise in the use of stolen American identities, as more schools participated in manual fighting with fraud rings. The university graduates whose recovery identities were stolen at their previous university, or their previous e -mail address was used to register in another institution.

Simpses said the fraudsters also use the short -term email addresses and the strange appearance to get rid of the semesters in a period of 10 minutes before they can get their hands on an email address. Simpkins explained that the verified email address is “like a gold tape”. Then it seems that the fraudster is legitimate to move forward and it is qualified to obtain discounts for students on devices and programs, and it can use the cloud storage of the college.

“We had a school that contacted us because some of the fraudsters ordered some computers, devices and other materials, then they delivered them abroad,” said Simbons. “And do this using an account with the school’s email address.”

Macandles said at first that it was easy to know if the fake student was hidden as a local applicant because his IP address was created abroad. But only a few classrooms later, IP addresses were local. When the college technology team seemed deeper, they will find that the title was from an abandoned building or somewhere in the center of Lake Mercyd.

Every time the school does something to create fraudulent applicants, the fraudsters will learn and get to know. The school system is now designed to prevent ghost applicants directly from the portal and at multiple stages before starting registration in the classroom.

Mangkands said that the professors are appointing home students to students for the first day of the class, but ghost students complete the tasks with artificial intelligence. However, fake domestic assignment faculty, by noticing that half of the separation that was delivered in identical work, or discovering the use of ChatGPT, for example.

“They are very innovative and very good at what they are doing,” said Mogndles. “I only think that the consistency that continues to learn and improve-is planning millions of dollars, there is money there, why don’t you invest in it?”

Flasting fraud‘

According to the Ministry of Energy, the financial fraud rate through stolen identities has reached the level of “displays federal students’ assistance programs under Chapter Four Higher Education Law“In a statement, the Minister of Education, Linda McMahon, said that the new temporary reform will help prevent theft of identity theft.

McMahon said: “When outbreak fraud is aid from qualified students, colleges operations, and taxpayers cut off, we take responsibility for the behavior,” McMahon said.

Ultimately, what schools are trying to do is to put obstacles that make it unattractive to attack the fraudsters because they have to do more front work to make the fraud scheme effective, explained by Jesse Gonzalez, assistant deputy adviser to information technology services at Rancho Santiago. However, schools are trying to balance the accurate issue of accepting every qualified person and remaining open to weak or unconventional students. “The higher the number of barriers you put in place, the higher the impact of students on students and the higher the students who need the most help.”

Dr. Kim from the Santiago Canyon College fears that many of the measures in force to clarify fraud may make it more difficult for students and community members – who may have for various reasons an email number, phone number or address – to reach education and other resources that can help them improve their lives.

Kim said: “Our ability to provide this democratic education for those who have not been able to reach the danger, and it is in danger because these bad actors turn our system into their pork banks.” “We have to continue to discover ways to remove them so that students can get these legal seats – and keep their open access.”

This story was originally shown on Fortune.com