Citing alarming new data showing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars lost to fraudulent student accounts, Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) is once again calling for a comprehensive audit of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office to determine what protections are in place and what more can be done to prevent financial aid fraud across the state’s 116-campus system.
In a formal request submitted to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, Senator Ochoa Bogh and Senator Roger Niello urged an investigation into how fictitious students, often created by bots, continue to siphon federal and state financial aid with ease. The call for an audit comes on the heels of an April 2025 CalMatters report revealing that scammers stole over $10 million in federal aid in the past year alone, more than double the amount lost the previous year. State financial aid fraud also surged, with over $3 million disbursed to fake students.
“This is a systemic failure that is draining resources from actual students and increasing pressure on faculty, staff, and instructional facilities,” said Senator Ochoa Bogh. “We’ve known about this issue for years. It’s disappointing that our community colleges haven’t been more successful in scaling back the fraud.”
The Senator has been a consistent voice on this issue since 2021, when she first raised concerns in a letter to then-Acting Chancellor Dr. Daisy Gonzales. That letter asked for immediate answers about the use of bots to fraudulently enroll in courses and steal financial aid information, as well as what structural reforms were underway to prevent such abuse. In November of 2022, The Chancellor’s Office responded by outlining the methods utilized to prevent or identify fraudulent activity including verification tools and application system changes. While they reported early progress, many solutions were still in development and today’s fraud levels raise serious questions about their effectiveness.
Despite a $150 million cybersecurity investment in 2022 and new partnerships with authentication firms like ID.Me, N2N, and LexisNexis, the fraud problem has not been curtailed. In fact, it’s accelerating: the percentage of fraudulent applicants has climbed from 20% in 2021 to 34% in early 2025.
The requested audit would help gather more data on how many fictitious students have been enrolled since 2020, how much aid they received, and what tools the colleges are using to detect and prevent fraud. It would also evaluate the effectiveness of existing technology, assess the impact on classroom access and legitimate enrollment, and provide policy recommendations to fix these failures.
“Every dollar that goes to a fake student is a dollar stolen from someone trying to build a better future,” said Senator Ochoa Bogh. “The state has a duty to close these gaps and restore integrity to our higher education system.”
Senator Ochoa Bogh and Senator Niello’s audit request is pending review by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee.