Colleges in the US and specifically community colleges are being inundated with phantom students. These “cyberstudents” are AI bots part of a cybersecurity breach where scammers disguised as students apply to college, obtain a college email address, and then abscond with financial aid only to disappear and never do any course work.
They are incredibly difficult to catch. I taught Cannabis Law in Fall 2024 and 15 of the 35 students were determined to be bots. They do some work and then disappear. This was a 100% online class. They frequently use names of students from historically marginalized communities where equity practices mean understanding with late work. Teaching this summer, I aggressively dropped students who did no work in the first few weeks only to find out they were struggling humans who then had to go through a lengthy reinstatement process. Not ideal and I am no closer to being able to determine an AI bot from a human.
The damage is financial, over $10 million in federal funds, but it also means actual students are unable to get into those classes where the AI bot has taken a seat. Also, California Community Colleges are open access with an easy application process to make taking classes as barrier free as possible.
Currently, the application process is under review by the State Chancellor’s Office but also at the school district level to perform security checks verifying an actual human is applying. In 2024 over 30% of California community college applications were fraudulent.
Author: June McLaughlin
