California has been hit hard by fraudulent ghost student scams over the past five years. In 2024 alone, California lost $13 million in financial aid. These scams are especially prevalent in California Community Colleges (CCC).
Las Positas is among those who received an uptick in fraudulent applications.
“We started to see some activity in summer, and fall of 2024 is when we started to notice,” LPC President Dyrell Foster said.
When LPC faculty noticed flags in the enrollment, they began to track and investigate the issue. What they found was a rise in fraudulent enrollments during those two semesters. In the following semester, spring of 2025, the numbers spiked.
“We probably had identified about 2,000 in terms of fraudulent enrollments during that registration window,” Foster said.
These ghost-student scams result in three main problems, all of which waste the college’s time and resources. When the scams first arose, professors spent long, frustrating hours trying to identify fraudulent students.
“Fraudulent activities can consume time and resources that can be better spent helping real students,” said Chris Ferguson, the CCC’s executive vice chancellor of finance and strategic initiatives.
Foster added colleges are also held accountable for any financial aid lost to the scams, saying, “The college and the district would have to pay that money back if (it was) not awarded to real students.”
Ghost students also take up the already limited number of seats in courses — seats that real students can no longer fill. Ferguson explained how ghost-filled classrooms impact which courses are offered in future semesters, as they “make it somewhat harder to know course-taking and enrollment patterns early in the semester.” Real students struggled to access courses needed for graduation. Las Positas could no longer estimate which semesters to offer those courses.
But there is a solution: artificial intelligence (AI). The employment of AI tools by the CCC has been largely effective in minimizing the amount of fraudulent applications and enrollments. According to EdSource, an education-focused journalism organization in California, about “80 of the state’s 115 community colleges are now or will soon be using an AI model.” The AI tools are designed to authenticate real students, identify false applications and block AI fraudulence posing as students.
“The district brought on a consulting firm, which has a platform called ‘Lightleap AI,’” Foster said. “We’ve implemented that during the summer of 2025 and into the fall.”
Lightleap AI, according to its website, “transforms student services and operations, from admissions and financial aid to fraud detection and data management.” The results of this new AI tool have been proven: After spring of 2025’s 2,000 fraudulent enrollments, the following fall semester only faced an estimated 200 fraudulent enrollments.
According to Foster, the numbers may have reduced even further since. “I don’t think we identified any for winter and spring of this year,” he said.
With the help of AI, LPC has cut fraud to a minimum. Now, the college can return its focus back to supporting and empowering real students — without ghosts haunting it.
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TOP PHOTO: LPC is among community colleges that have seen a rise in financial aid fraud in the form of fake students registering for classes. Now artificial intelligence is being used to help solve the problem. (Photo courtesy of Envato Elements)
Nuha Maflahi is the Campus Life Editor for The Express. Follow her on X @NuhaMaflahiLPC
