Community colleges in California are considering a new application fee and robust identity verification to deter scammers from using fake or stolen IDs to steal student financial aid.

The California Community Colleges Board of Governors is scheduled to continue discussing and addressing the issue at an upcoming meeting on July 22.

The agenda includes exploring an application fee “not to exceed $10 or actual costs, whichever is lower.” The goal is to “support application review costs and deter fraudulent application submissions.”

The plan also includes potential refunds, credits, or waivers for students who have financial hardship.

The Board of Governors first raised the idea of an application fee during a May 20 meeting, as the state’s community college system has been reporting a growing number of fake students.

According to the Board of Governors, these applicants apply to a community college and seek student financial aid using stolen or fake identification. After the fake students enroll in courses, they take the financial aid but never attend classes.

“Around 31.4 percent of the applications have been determined to be fraudulent,” Executive Vice Chancellor Chris Ferguson said at the May meeting.

About 0.2 percent of this fraud involves applicants who successfully make it through to the financial aid stage, he said.

California community colleges have recorded around $10 million in federal financial aid fraud and $3 million in state financial aid fraud in the most recent school year, he said. This amount is a small percentage of the $3.5 billion in student financial aid funding reported by the Legislative Analyst’s Office for the 2024–2025 school year.

The college system has been working to remove fictitious students before census day, which is when colleges must report enrollment numbers to the state for financial aid purposes, according to Ferguson.

However, some board members expressed concern about implementing an application fee as a form of fraud deterrent.

“I think charging any kind of fee to apply to community colleges fundamentally conflicts with our system’s identity as an accessible, open, and community-rooted higher education system,” said Love Adu, a board member representing students. “Let’s say it’s a $10 fee or a $20 fee—that isn’t modest for a lot of people. It is the cost of food for the children. It is a week’s worth of gas.”

Bill Rawlings, vice president of the board, agreed with the concerns.

“We have this automatic detection that helps combat AI with AI and combat bots with bots,” he said.

He said he hopes the application process can rely first on the security company ID.me to help verify identities, in addition to in-person verification or other online options.

“We already have very many layers that we hope will be successful that we haven’t fully implemented,” Rawlings said, adding that the application fee should be an option the board has the authority to apply, but won’t need.

Board members noted that if the community college system does move forward with an application fee, the proposal will need legislative approval and a signature from the governor.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors and the Chancellor’s Office for comment.

The issue of student financial aid fraud is already being discussed in the state Legislature. A bipartisan request is currently seeking to “audit the impact of fraudulent students, including bots, on California’s community colleges, students, and faculty,” according to a letter by Assemblywoman Blanca E. Rubio and state Sens. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh and Roger Niello.

The lawmakers said that fake student enrollment impacts the colleges’ ability to accurately determine the number of courses to offer each year.

“Fraudulent enrollments create the artificial need for ‘more classes,’ which increases the likelihood that a college will offer multiple sections of under-enrolled courses, so the faculty class losses are compounded, and the institution spends money needlessly,” they stated in the letter.

On the federal level, California representatives in Congress are urging the Department of Education and the Department of Justice to investigate the “ongoing financial aid fraud.” They said the fraud wastes taxpayer dollars and takes away opportunities from real students.