‘Ghost’ students are hijacking millions from colleges—and locking real human students out of classes

[hawkman]

This not a new thing but still causing trouble for real students and the colleges . Free

‘Ghost’ students are hijacking millions from colleges—and locking real human students out of classes

Sophisticated criminal networks are deploying AI to create thousands of fake students to steal money. About $90 million has disappeared.

www.yahoo.com

Clip from link .

Ghost students​

Across America’s community colleges and universities, sophisticated criminal networks are using AI to deploy thousands of “synthetic” or “ghost” students—sometimes in the dead of night—to attack colleges. The hordes are cramming themselves into registration portals to enroll and illegally apply for financial aid. The ghost students then occupy seats meant for real students—and have even resorted to handing in homework just to hold out long enough to siphon millions in financial aid before disappearing.
The scope of the ghost-student plague is staggering. Jordan Burris, vice president at identity-verification firm Socure and former chief of staff in the White House’s Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer, told Fortune more than half the students registering for classes at some schools have been found to be illegitimate. Among Socure’s client base, between 20% to 60% of student applicants are ghosts.
“Imagine a world where 20% of the student population are fraudulent,” said Burris. “That’s the reality of the scale.”

 

[tdidymas]

This not a new thing but still causing trouble for real students and the colleges . Free

‘Ghost’ students are hijacking millions from colleges—and locking real human students out of classes

Sophisticated criminal networks are deploying AI to create thousands of fake students to steal money. About $90 million has disappeared.

www.yahoo.com

Clip from link .

Ghost students​

Across America’s community colleges and universities, sophisticated criminal networks are using AI to deploy thousands of “synthetic” or “ghost” students—sometimes in the dead of night—to attack colleges. The hordes are cramming themselves into registration portals to enroll and illegally apply for financial aid. The ghost students then occupy seats meant for real students—and have even resorted to handing in homework just to hold out long enough to siphon millions in financial aid before disappearing.
The scope of the ghost-student plague is staggering. Jordan Burris, vice president at identity-verification firm Socure and former chief of staff in the White House’s Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer, told Fortune more than half the students registering for classes at some schools have been found to be illegitimate. Among Socure’s client base, between 20% to 60% of student applicants are ghosts.
“Imagine a world where 20% of the student population are fraudulent,” said Burris. “That’s the reality of the scale.”

The U.S. does not have a systemic race problem, it has a systemic FRAUD problem. If gov officials treated taxpayer money as if it were their own, they would make sure the fraud problem was solved, and would bring the swindlers to justice. There are too many smug bureaucrats who are apathetic about where the money is going. And those who kicked God and the 10 Commandments out of the schools are scratching their heads wondering why there is so much theft and other crimes these days.

 

[Milk-Drops]

The U.S. does not have a systemic race problem, it has a systemic FRAUD problem. If gov officials treated taxpayer money as if it were their own, they would make sure the fraud problem was solved, and would bring the swindlers to justice. There are too many smug bureaucrats who are apathetic about where the money is going. And those who kicked God and the 10 Commandments out of the schools are scratching their heads wondering why there is so much theft and other crimes these days.

There are issues of both fraud and systemic racism. Essentially the issue is that we need to fully rebuild our social welfare system, but neither party is truly interested in doing that. The Republicans want it dismantled and the Democrats are comfortable allowing non profits and ngos to handle it.

 

[Hidden In Him]

This not a new thing but still causing trouble for real students and the colleges . Free

‘Ghost’ students are hijacking millions from colleges—and locking real human students out of classes

Sophisticated criminal networks are deploying AI to create thousands of fake students to steal money. About $90 million has disappeared.

www.yahoo.com

Clip from link .

Ghost students​

Across America’s community colleges and universities, sophisticated criminal networks are using AI to deploy thousands of “synthetic” or “ghost” students—sometimes in the dead of night—to attack colleges. The hordes are cramming themselves into registration portals to enroll and illegally apply for financial aid. The ghost students then occupy seats meant for real students—and have even resorted to handing in homework just to hold out long enough to siphon millions in financial aid before disappearing.
The scope of the ghost-student plague is staggering. Jordan Burris, vice president at identity-verification firm Socure and former chief of staff in the White House’s Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer, told Fortune more than half the students registering for classes at some schools have been found to be illegitimate. Among Socure’s client base, between 20% to 60% of student applicants are ghosts.
“Imagine a world where 20% of the student population are fraudulent,” said Burris. “That’s the reality of the scale.”

I'm not sure I understand it. When someone gets "financial aid," doesn't that mean they simply get free tuition? How would a scammer make money by not attending classes?

 

[hawkman]

I'm not sure I understand it. When someone gets "financial aid," doesn't that mean they simply get free tuition? How would a scammer make money by not attending classes?

Besides tuition they get financial aid living expenses money in some cases and other freebies .

Scammers are also using bizarre-looking short-term and disposable email addresses to register for classes in a 10-minute period before they can get their hands on a .edu email address, said Simpkins. That verified email address is “like a gold bar,” Simpkins explained. The fraudster then appears legitimate going forward and is eligible for student discounts on hardware, software, and can use the college’s cloud storage.

“We had a school that reached out to us because some fraudsters ordered some computers and devices and other materials and then had them delivered overseas,” said Simpkins. “And they did it using an account with the school’s .edu email address.”

 

[Milk-Drops]

I'm not sure I understand it. When someone gets "financial aid," doesn't that mean they simply get free tuition? How would a scammer make money by not attending classes?

Partially. There are grants where you can get money.

 

[tdidymas]

There are issues of both fraud and systemic racism. Essentially the issue is that we need to fully rebuild our social welfare system, but neither party is truly interested in doing that. The Republicans want it dismantled and the Democrats are comfortable allowing non profits and ngos to handle it.

The Dems create the systemic race problem by making race the problem child of everything. They use the Civil Rights Act as their tool of division. And now they want immorality to be included in civil rights. The problem is rooted in immoral worldviews because they hate God's law. Kicking God out of the schools resulted in what we see here.

 

[Milk-Drops]

The Dems create the systemic race problem by making race the problem child of everything. They use the Civil Rights Act as their tool of division. And now they want immorality to be included in civil rights. The problem is rooted in immoral worldviews because they hate God's law. Kicking God out of the schools resulted in what we see here.

It has nothing to do with the dems. Systemic racism is legal theory in law school and sociology. Books that talk about the academic merits of the concept delve into the history of how laws changed after the cival rights act and how the law has been impacted when explicit racism fell out of favor politically. The actual field goes after both Republicans and Democrats. There is a lot of criticism for Bill Clinton and Johnson.