California’s community college system has a responsibility to educate students, safeguard taxpayer funds, and provide affordable pathways to upward mobility.
Instead, it has become a case study in how public institutions collapse when verification is optional, enforcement is politicized, and fraud is treated as collateral damage.
Roughly one in three applicants to California’s community colleges—about 1.2 million individuals—is believed to be fraudulent.
These are fake students, many operating overseas, enrolling in online classes, submitting AI-generated assignments, occupying limited course seats, and collecting state and federal financial aid intended for real students.
California operates the largest public higher-education system in the nation, spanning 116 community colleges and serving more than two million legitimate students. The system was built to expand access and workforce training.
Instead, it became a low-friction entry point for scammers precisely because identity verification was optional for most applicants.
The scale of the problem forced action only after national scrutiny. Following a CalMatters investigation, nine members of Congress contacted the U.S. Department of Education and the Justice Department requesting a federal investigation into California’s community college financial aid process.
Only then did the system’s governing board vote to require student identity verification—a basic safeguard that should never have been discretionary.
Even that reform met resistance. The board debated charging a nominal application fee, reportedly no more than $10, before rejecting the proposal and instead directing staff to “explore” alternatives.
During public comment, students described competing with bots for required courses and losing seats needed to graduate or transfer. One student testified that a fake enrollee took her place in a class essential to her academic timeline.
That testimony underscores the real cost of fraud. Every fake applicant displaces a real student. Every fraudulent enrollment delays graduation, increases costs, and undermines the promise of affordable higher education.
This breakdown is not unique to community colleges. It reflects a broader pattern across California’s public-benefits systems, where eligibility checks were relaxed and oversight treated as a moral failing rather than a governing necessity.
California lost $32.6 billion to unemployment fraud during the pandemic. Prison inmates collected more than $1 billion in fraudulent claims, including payments sent to death-row inmates.
In disability insurance audits, state officials flagged 345,000 claims and found that 98% of the listed medical providers were fake.
Food assistance programs show similar vulnerabilities. CalFresh, California’s food-stamp system, has posted error rates exceeding 13%, leaving the state responsible for billions in improper payments.
In San Diego alone, nearly $35 million was stolen through EBT card fraud. Statewide, organized foreign theft rings reportedly walked away with more than $180 million.
Yet when these failures surface, California’s political leadership does not respond with enforcement. Instead, it reframes accountability as cruelty and fraud prevention as exclusion.
California once ran a $100 billion surplus. It is now facing an $18 billion deficit, even as officials argue over whether verifying student identity might inconvenience applicants.
When one in three community college applicants is fake, the problem is not funding. It is governance.
Until California restores basic accountability across its education and welfare systems, every new dollar—no matter how it is taxed or raised—will follow the same trajectory as the last surplus: spent quickly, tracked poorly, and gone.
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