Finance
Fake ‘ghost students’ stealing identities and financial aid money
NEW YORK (WABC) — They’re called “ghost students” and they’re draining the resources of community colleges and stealing tax payer financial aid funds.
“You’re stealing from people who really have the least already,” said Dr. David Stout, President of Brookdale Community College in New Jersey. “It’s infuriating.”
Scammers are stealing people’s identities, often through data breaches, to apply for online college classes. Once they apply for financial aid and get the money, they disappear.
It’s a sophisticated scheme and community colleges are often targeted because of their open enrollment policies.
At Brookdale Community College, they’ve been receiving about 1,000 ghost student applications each year for the past three years.
“Knowing that there are individuals out there that are trying to steal from our community college students and individuals who are trying to steal from our community and from our taxpayers is infuriating,” said Dr. Stout.
Since the pandemic started, it wasn’t rare to have students across the country sign up for his college’s online courses. But three years ago, when one of his financial aid workers noticed a bump in enrollment, the president’s team investigated.
“So she dug a little bit deeper and found that there were seven students that all shared somewhat common credentials and it was at that point that we realized that we were the victims of ghost students,” said Dr. Stout.
“Of course I’m furious that we may have individuals who try to take advantage of the open door policies that community colleges have,” said Dr. Stout.
He said there’s no evidence that any of the fake students who applied at Brookdale received financial funds, they were discovered first. Since then, the college says it has put mechanisms in place to root out fake applicants.
Eyewitness News reached out to other colleges in the area who say they’ve also put new screening practices in place.
At the City University of New York, a spokesperson said ghost applicants make up less than 1% of its applications. In a statement, a college spokesperson said: “Thanks to our careful screening process none were accepted or provided financial aid, but we continue to strengthen our policies to reduce the number of these applications. For example, the University recently introduced CAPTCHA to screen out bots and fake applicants.”
Nassau Community College has also taken precautions.
A spokesperson said. “while we cannot disclose specific security measures, the college’s IT, financial aid, and admissions departments have been working together to protect the integrity of our admissions and financial aid processes and mitigate the risk this type of fraud poses to our institution.”
Eyewitness News partnered with ABC News to show how this is a growing problem across the country.
The Inspector General’s Office with the U.S. Department of Education says they have 200 open investigations nationwide.
“We see in some of these fraud schemes where people are enrolled in two or three different schools at the same time receiving aid at all of them,” said Jason Williams, the U.S. Dept of Education Assistant Inspector General for Investigation.
Some schools are now using special software to screen applicants.
“It takes a tremendous amount of administrative work to go through and verify that they’re fraudulent,” said Dr. Stout.
The Brookdale Community College President says they’re in contact with other colleges in the area on a continuous basis to share information and ways to prevent ghost applicants from getting enrolled.
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Finance
Low-income Chinese girl aces gaokao, inspires live-streamers offering help
A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined.
The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers.
This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam.
She has received offers from China’s two leading universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University.
Han’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable given her family’s impoverished circumstances.
Her mother suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, preventing her from working. Her father, who earns a living through farming and odd jobs, serves as the family’s sole provider. Han also has a younger sister.
Finance
UK financial regulator publishes landmark AI review
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a landmark review on Monday that proposes recommendations to regulate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial decisions made by consumers.
The review, titled the Mills Review, anticipates that both consumers and firms will start delegating “more financial decision-making to AI systems,” including for agreements, initiating transactions, and executing decisions “within agreed parameters.” One of the key findings of the review outlined that while AI can help bridge advice gaps and “support growth,” there remain risks “associated with fraud, cyber security, and consumer harm.” Conducting the review, Sheldon Mills highlighted that “AI can also amplify risks: bias, discrimination, exclusion, opaque decision-making (particularly when multiple AI models interact), misleading or hallucinatory advice and erosion of consumer trust.”
The review stated that presently, one in five adults in the UK are “already open to AI making decisions for them,” particularly when decisions feel “complex or high stakes.” It found that roughly 26 percent of the population “trust general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for financial advice” with little awareness that such platforms provide no “formal routes to recourse” or protections.
Overall, the Mills Review identified four areas that it anticipates will be impacted by AI in the financial sector: “the transformation of firms,” “new consumer journeys,” “a reshaped competition landscape,” and “amplified financial crime and cyber risk.” The FCA projected the shift in how consumers and firms consult AI to take place by 2030.
The Mills Review put forth seven “priority” recommendations to be considered by the FCA Board. It recommended that any transitions to autonomous AI models be monitored and that regulatory frameworks and perimeters be adapted and secured. The review called for the strengthening of “system-wide coordination and oversight,” the scaling up of the FCA’s AI Lab to enable it to support AI models and innovation for agentic finance, and an “AI-enabled agentic supervisory model” to be built and adopted. Finally, it recommended that a trusted “public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service” be developed.
The FCA announced, in the press release, that it will launch an AI “good and poor practice publication” in late 2026.
Finance
Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approved a one-year audit contract capped at $131,750 plus $225 per hour during a virtual meeting Monday, along with a new finance director job description.
The contract is with Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants, an Atlanta-based firm, and covers the 2025-26 fiscal year and the restatement of the 2024-25 fiscal year and ancillary services through FY 2029-2030. The work is set to be completed by Nov. 15.
The board approved the contract in a 5-0 vote.
Audit contract details
Interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch said the cost is already accounted for in the district’s budget.
“And is actually less than we expected given our current situation — we were thrilled with the bid,” Koch said.
Koch said she believes this is Mauldin & Jenkins’ first school district audit in Kentucky, but that the firm works with school districts of more than 100,000 students throughout the Southeast.
“Quite frankly when I spoke to the folks at KDE they were thrilled because we’re running kind of short of auditors who want to do school district audits — so all around I think this was a win-win for everyone,” Koch said.
New finance director position
The board also approved a new job description for the position of Director of Finance. Acting Superintendent Dr. Bill Bradford said the title will replace two associate director positions.
“Which will not only save the school district money but it’s also going to streamline our work and align internal controls to make room for a more efficient unit,” Bradford said.
Koch said the position will be posted as soon as possible following the board’s approval.
Closed session
The board went into closed session for more than an hour to discuss pending investigations that could lead to employee discipline. When the board returned, it took no action and adjourned the meeting.
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.
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