At the beginning of the spring semester, Mt. SAC was inundated with fraudulent students attempting to register for classes, causing confusion and headaches for students and faculty.
According to Dean of Enrollment Management George Bradshaw, most of the classes affected were online courses, though the exact number of classes impacted were unknown.
Fraudulent students otherwise known as “ghost students,” are individuals who pose as authentic students registering for classes for financial gain by accessing accounts such as FAFSA, government assistance or other resources for malicious intents. The trend of this type of behavior grew extensively through the semesters that overlapped with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as online classes became more normalized. The pandemic gave way to easier avenues for online misconduct and crime to take place.
Though Mt. SAC was swamped with fake registrations, this type of activity has been happening for several years now, but this appears to be the first semester where these fraudulent students enrolled in in-person courses. In either way, the influx of fake enrollments hurts students and faculty alike.
As this spring semester started, faculty were left unaware of how many students would be left in their class after the fake students were dropped. Low enrollments in courses typically result in the cancellation of classes, negatively impacting both sides leaving students scurrying to find other courses and professors at risk of losing classes.
Bradshaw explained that the way California community colleges set up their registration process is much different as opposed to universities.
Unlike universities that require more information from the attendee, such as proper legal documents along with the paying of a fee, community colleges pride themselves on a more open and lenient administration process not requiring such information in hopes to serve a wider scope of potential students.
This “openness” gives way for bad actors to abuse and malign the system for their own purposes.
Mt. SAC was not the only community college that was affected as the incident spanned numerous schools across the local LA region.
According to Bradshaw, schools within the LA district were also swamped with over 40,000 fraudulent registrations. This indicates the need for updated security measures for schools and shows the breadth of online crime. However, despite any modern updates, identifying fraud before it affects an organization is an endless cat and mouse game.
One way Mt. SAC combated the incident by trying to directly contact those students deemed suspicious to verify their enrollment within the class. Simple, though effective, Bradshaw explained that Mt. SAC was then capable of filtering out phony accounts once the vetting process began.
Calls and emails were sent out and those who responded called or emailed back with google phone numbers or fake emails. Those who were directly spoken to [over the phone] could not answer basic questions on their application forms, [thus] eliminating them from further progress, explained Bradshaw.
Ghost students can consume and drain valuable resources from colleges. Though obtaining money or personal information is mainly the goal, fraudulent registration also interferes with both the professor and student educational goals for the semester.
Graphic Design professor Krislam Chin, explained her struggles and frustrations dealing with ghost students.
Chin was excited to see a full class lined up this semester only to find out that it was mostly filled with fraudulent students. “It wasn’t until the weekend before the semester started that [Mt. SAC] did a full sweep again [on my classes] that I learned … like oh my gosh, from my 25 students that I had [now] only eight,” Chin said.
Chin was also upset with the impact this had on students who were on the waitlist, as many students who wanted her classes couldn’t register.
Chin hoped that admissions would have had some way of transferring over students on her roster from the waitlist as some reached out to her for help. However, Chin was unavailable to clarify if those students asking for help were either legitimate or ghost students trying to access more information.
Professor of Commercial Photography and Video Jay Morgan, was also affected by ghost students who filled his roster of online classes, making it difficult to see who was legitimate and who wasn’t.
Yet, in situations like these, Morgan has learned to use a very efficient tool to filter through his attendance roster: homework. “For me … I can tell when I start the class if a person doesn’t do my syllabus quiz, [or] they don’t hand in the first week’s assignment. At that point I can start dropping students and adding students on the waitlist who are interested in getting in the class,” Morgan said.
When both professors were asked how they felt about Mt. SAC’s approach to the situation, Morgan replied that the school did quite well to filter out those who didn’t belong and make room for actual students to register.
Chin also shared the same sentiment, but to a degree. Though she is grateful for the work of those behind the scenes, Chin now wants to see a report from the school.
“They were really good at communication but I’m curious why this happened? How did this happen? Are we increasing [our] budget to ensure this doesn’t happen again? Programs like ours … [are] medium-sized programs. And enrollment is so important to us that it scares us to see these seats [empty],” Chin said. “So I personally would like to see a report on why and how this happened,” she added.
