After 8 News Now reported that the College of Southern Nevada was the victim of a multimillion-dollar breach, the federal government is taking action to prevent fraud.
A “Ghost Student” scheme resulted in a $7.4 million loss for CSN.
“We were attacked, much like a lot of colleges across the nation have been attacked. Hence the feds taking action,” Dr. Juan Avalos, CSN’s vice president of student affairs, said.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated in a press release on Friday that widespread fraud is “ripping off taxpayers” and denying students financial aid. As a consequence, she was instituting an additional layer of security to verify FAFSA applications.
“This is more about scammers than it is about people, and people not doing their jobs. I want to make that part clear,” Dr. Avalos said.
According to CSN, the community college received an abundance of federal financial aid applications from October to December 2023.
However, CSN observed an issue on the first day of the spring semester in 2024: the classrooms were vacant.
“It became a level of crisis during spring of 2024, when our instructors were reporting full rosters but no one was showing up,” Avalos said.
CSN was required to reimburse the U.S. Department of Education for loans it granted to fraudulent pupils as a result of the fraud scheme.
Avalos stated that CSN was susceptible to risks due to its size and the absence of enrollment requirements for students.
On Friday, the Department of Education disclosed that it would implement an additional layer of security for FAFSA applications. Applicants will be required to present an unexpired, legitimate, government-issued photo identification in person or via a live video conference.
The action was praised by Avalos.
“By the time they hit the colleges, like College of Southern Nevada, we will have a greater sense of confidence that the FAFSAs we’re getting belong to real students,” Avalos said.
In a statement regarding the new verification, McMahon said, “When rampant fraud is taking aid away from eligible students, disrupting the operations of colleges and ripping off taxpayers, we have a responsibility to act.”
However, what about the funds that CSN was unable to recover? Who is responsible for that?
“So about half of it is stuff we’re not going to get. The other is stuff that the college has to pay. But we’re going to pay it from institutional funds. None of it is going to be kicked to the student,” Avalos said.
He also stated that CSN will incur losses of approximately $4.3 million. This summer, the college will be instituting additional security upgrades, such as the addition of a third-party verification system on applications. This system will verify the information of future applicants.
