More than 65,000 fake students applied for aid at California community colleges

More than 65,000 fake students applied for financial aid at California’s community colleges in an apparent scam attempt, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

Patrick Perry, director of policy, research and data with the California Student Aid Commission, noticed a few weeks ago that 60,000 more aid applications had been submitted from a specific group of students over the last year, according to the Times. They were first-time applicants to a California community college, older than 30, earning less than $40,000 annually and were seeking a two-year degree.

“We were kind of scratching our heads going, ‘Did or didn’t 60,000 extra older adult students really attempt to apply to community colleges here in the last few months?’” Perry told the Times.

Officials eventually determined that the applications were likely coming from fake bot accounts and not real students, the Times reported. According to the Times, the applications were spread across the state at 105 of California’s 116 community colleges.

Perry told the Times that the number of fake students attempting to get financial aid has surpassed 65,000. Perry also said officials likely caught the scam before aid was distributed to those fake students.

“I can’t tell you whether any money has gone out or not, but my guess is probably not,” he said. “I think we’ve caught it.”