“Ghosts” in the Classroom: How Community Colleges are Navigating the Crisis of Fraudulent Enrollment

• In Event: Sociology of Education Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 9. Higher Education Financial Policy

Abstract

In the last several years, colleges across the country have seen sharp increases in fraudulent applications. Sophisticated criminal groups use stolen or composite identities to apply to and enroll in colleges, often with the goal of pocketing financial aid in the form of federal Pell Grant or student loan payouts. As a result, courses are filled with “ghost students” who disappear after financial aid is disbursed. The consequences of this surge are concerning: colleges are liable for misappropriated financial aid and must redirect resources to identify and address fraud, legitimate students aren’t able to register for packed courses, and the risk of reputational damage looms large. Two-year community colleges are the primary targets of these activities, due to their open-access admission policies and straightforward online application processes. In this research, I adopt an organizational perspective to examine how community college personnel respond to the fraudulent enrollment crisis. I draw on interview and ethnographic data from a larger project on community college enrollment processes conducted at Suburban Community College (SCC), a public two-year school in Illinois. I find that the college adopted a “risk mitigation” perspective to rationalize the need for supplementary application steps that could pose barriers to legitimate applicants. The college adopted “self-imposed monitoring” strategies due to a perceived lack of federal oversight. Additionally, I find that SCC collaborated with other community colleges in the state to share resources and best practices, as well as to lobby the state for additional support. These findings contribute to previous research on isomorphism and competition in higher education, complicating existing frameworks for understanding relationships between policymakers and practitioners.

Author

• Karin Yndestad, Northwestern University