A South Bay community college district says it's getting overrun by potentially fraudulent applications. This spring it fought back by putting more than a third of all its applications on hold for further review.
As first reported by student publication La Voz News, leaders at the Foothill-De Anza Community College District are now keeping a closer eye on applications for both financial aid and admissions.
Officials shared with NBC Bay Area News that in the Spring quarter, the district, which encompasses both Foothill and De Anza Colleges, received around 26,000 applications, and of those 10,000 were put on hold for possible fraud before the start of the quarter.
"The influx of fraudulent students started coming in during the pandemic because everything was kind of online," said Lisa Mandy, director of Financial Aid & Scholarships at De Anza College.
Mandy noted that this pattern has been happening at colleges across the state.
"And community colleges have been hit the hardest because we do not have as strict enrollment requirements as a CSU, right?" she added.
Financial aid officials at De Anza took note of the trend and came together to discuss the patterns they observed.
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"Which I’m not going to tell you, because we don’t want you to know what we’re looking for," Mandy said.
She said the patterns were observed in financial aid applications first, but in 2024 De Anza saw the influx of applications spread to admissions too.
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De Anza Dean of Enrollment Services, Nazy Galoyan, said the college doesn't know exactly how these fake applications are generated, though artificial intelligence and bots might play a role. Galoyan described the fraudulent applicants as "fast" and "proactive," doing things like asking to be re-enrolled when they are dropped from classes.
"I’ve been repeating to our IT group, our team, 'We need to be thinking like we’re hackers,'" Galoyan said.
The admissions team now uses three levels of filters to flag applications and enrolled students for signs of fraud.
De Anza leaders note that some "real" human students do wind up having their applications put on hold as a result.
"Maybe I pull back money on 100 students, and if I get two students who are in there that are real students [I say] ‘I’m really sorry I took your money, but I can fix it,’ but I still stopped 98 people from getting money that – it’s taxpayer dollars effectively," Mandy explained.
For students who believe their applications have been put on hold mistakenly, Mandy says to walk into the Financial Aid office in person to verify your identity.
Some students told NBC Bay Area News that these "fake students" have impacted their ability to get into classes.
Isabel Caballero Teixeira, a De Anza Biology student, said that one of her professors had more than 70 students initially enroll in a class.
"Within the first week, almost all those students had dropped except the 15 that were actually human," Caballero Teixeira said.
This reality is frustrating for students.
"It is taking up space for students who are actually here and actually want to be here," Caballero Teixeira added.
De Anza Kinesiology student Khyree Cotton had not heard about the wave of application holds.
"That’s crazy I hope my account isn’t on hold right now,” said Cotton, who receives financial aid.
"I hope that the people who are actually coming here for education and stuff, I hope their financial aid isn’t in jeopardy, because school is expensive," Cotton added.
Students say this trend is shocking and worrisome.
De Anza administrators say they are trying to fight this trend proactively.
"We should be standing our grounds and fighting and not letting this happen," Galoyan said.
"My message to all the colleges who are not doing this work: they are basically putting themselves in a really risky situation," she added.
