After experiencing an alarming number of “phantom” enrollments since the spring, Citrus is beginning to see a steady decrease in enrollment fraud.
Gerald Sequeira, Citrus College’s dean of enrollment services, said in a phone interview that disenrollments peaked in the spring at 972.
During the summer session, the college purged 49 enrollments. This semester, only two have been purged so far.
Although it is hard to confirm those are fraudulent enrollments, Sequeira said, the accounts showed signs of potential fraud.
A total of 3,541 student accounts have been flagged for suspicious activity since winter session for a variety of reasons, Sequeira said. Some accounts exhibited tell-tale signs of fraud, including groups enrolled in common CRNs, multiple iterations of the same name and international IP addresses.
Sequeira said there are more mechanisms in place to prevent enrollment fraud now than in March. “We’re choking it at the starting point, so we’re not playing this cat-and-mouse game anymore.”
The California Community Colleges Technology Center is using artificial intelligence to screen for fraud in CCCApply applications, Sequeira said, which has resulted in less fraudulent applications coming through to the college. Account creators are also being asked to use phone numbers to sign up.
In addition, applications are being screened manually.
“We hired a person that works in admissions and records and all they do is review every single application manually,” Sequeira said. “They’re looking for IP addresses that are outside the United States that are submitting the application, addresses that don’t look right, and they’ll double check them” to ensure legitimacy.
Back in spring, faculty were burdened with having to detect fraud and drop students from their classes manually. With the help of the tech center and new employee, Sequeira said, fighting fraud should be less taxing on professors, but they should still monitor for suspicious activity.
Director of Financial Aid Stephen Fahey said although enrollment fraud isn’t new, it has increased due to new financial aid funds brought about by COVID-19.
“As soon as you figure out what the criminals are doing, they change their playbook,” Fahey said. “This has been a really concerted effort on the part of whoever’s doing this fraud,” an effort that included using stolen identities.
Money from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund and CARES Act funds could be a potential motive for those committing fraud, Fahey said. “The current trends of fraud are all being addressed and monitored.”
Sequeira and Fahey have both expressed confidence that with the help of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, Admissions and Records and faculty, the amount of fraudulent enrollments will see a decrease this semester.
“I would say we were on the front end” of the response, Fahey said. He mentioned that some colleges only recently started looking for fraud in their spring enrollment numbers.
