STOCKTON, Calif. — Hundreds of fraudulent applicants from around the world found their way to San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton. However, the global scheme did not last long.
"Last week, we dropped those students from the classes. We blocked their Delta College accounts so that they can't access email or other services," said college spokesperson Alex Breitler.
In all, 425 phony applications were filled out and submitted online in August in September. 275 fraudulent student accounts were enrolled, and another 1,200 applications and perhaps more are under investigation by the community college.
However, San Joaquin Delta College is not alone.
It's estimated around 65,000 phony applications flooded dozens of community colleges across California.
"And, it just causes a mix-up, and you get a lot of emails about it and you're wondering that have you talked to these people or is it going to affect you in any way," said Zhyomara Garcia, an 18-year old accounting major from Stockton.
It's unclear if they were able to access any financial aid.
"You just wouldn't think of it happening here to a place you go to," said Jacob Walden, a freshman criminal justice major from Escalon.
The red flag that something wasn't quite right was caught by two Delta College instructors who noticed a large spike in enrollment.
Digital Media professor Adriana Brogger saw her online course enrollment jump from 16 students to 85. But, she also noticed the same alleged student posting two different initial introductions.
"So, for example, in one the student said 'I am married with four children' and in the other the student says 'I'm single with a pet dog.' And, those were the kind of things that just kept me kind of scratching my head saying this isn't adding up," Brogger said.
Right now, the California Community College system as a whole is still trying to come up with a way of preventing this widescale student application fraud from happening again.
The non-profit, nonpartisan journalism organization CalMatters is investigating the scam. Their investigation found the phony students to be first-time applicants older than 30 and earning less than $40,000 a year.
A student aid worker detected the phony applications checking records after unusual surges in class enrollment.
San Joaquin Delta College has now launched a cyber security reporting form for students, staff and faculty to immediately alert the college about possible issues.
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