Statements From Los Angeles Community College District and California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
The Los Angeles Community College District:
The Los Angeles Community College District continues to aggressively review and pursue all issues related to questionable, suspicious and/or fraudulent enrollments and financial aid applications. The District takes the situation with the utmost seriousness. Our review of the Fall 2021 Semester and the upcoming Winter session remains on-going, but not yet complete.
The independent California Student Aid Commission previously confirmed that there appears to be individuals who are taking advantage of the situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic which caused a shift to more online education because online environments can often help shield a person's true identity. LACCD is only one part of this larger, dynamic situation statewide and the District is cooperating with all appropriate external authorities regarding the situation.
Due to pending reviews, as well as for security reasons and the protection of personal information, the District is not releasing specific details at this time about the situation. Releasing details now could interfere with existing, ongoing reviews and also could enhance the abilities of those who intend to engage in fraudulent behavior.
The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office:
The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office (CO) (in partnership with the California Community Colleges Tech Center) is committed to preventing and identifying fraud in ways which don't create further barriers for our students.
Based on early observations, the TechCenter has identified that approximately 20% of the CCCApply traffic is malicious and bot-related. Nearly 15% of that traffic was caught by new software that does Advanced Bot Detection. This month, an additional security measure -- two factor authentication -- will be added to the platform used to create an account needed to apply for enrollment.
On August 30, the CO issued an update outlining results of new application fraud detection software put in place in July. It also informed colleges of the need to report to the Chancellor's Office monthly a number of metrics related to application and financial aid fraud.
At this juncture the CO and the Tech Center do not have a comprehensive picture of what may be occurring, as not all colleges have reported information at this point.
Since the investigation is still ongoing, the Chancellor's Office is not commenting publicly on details of its investigation at this time.
The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office (Chancellor's Office) remains committed to identifying and reducing fraud in admission and financial aid applications. Any financial aid fraud is unacceptable and diverts resources away from deserving students who are seeking to improve their lives through a college education.
