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‘Ghost’ college students on the rise, stealing millions in taxpayer dollars
American Thinker ^ | 05/08/2025 | Olivia Murray

Posted on 05/08/2025 8:30:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

The scamdemic is the gift that keeps on giving, and it’s only a matter of time before we the taxpayers are called upon to settle the student loan bill for robots too.

According to a report from SFGate, “ghost” students are on the rise at colleges across the nation, particularly in California, a dramatic increase seen after much of the education sector transitioned to remote learning during 2020.

Here’s the story:

When the pandemic upended the world of higher education, Robin Pugh, a professor at City College of San Francisco, began to see one puzzling problem in her online courses: Not everyone was a real student.

[snip]

Some of the disengaged students in Pugh’s courses are what administrators and cybersecurity experts say are ‘ghost students,’ and they’ve been a growing problem for community colleges, particularly since the shift to online instruction during the pandemic. These ‘ghost students’ are artificially intelligent agents or bots that pose as real students in order to steal millions of dollars of financial aid that could otherwise go to actual humans.

Correction: When the government upended the world....”

Who might be behind this scheme? Well if I had to wager a guess, my money’s on the teachers’ unions, or shadowy “progressive” organizations—but it’s safe to say that it’s not conservatives behind the scam.

Now, during the four years Joe Biden spent in office, he “forgave” around $183,000,000,000—that’s billion—in student loan debt using our money. How much of that went to coursework for robots? Apparently, the problem with bots really only began in 2021 (again, a lovely addition to the litany of scams that flourished in a post-COVID world). And, some ground-breaking insight, from a government official in California: “Bots don’t act on their own, there is almost always a human behind it[.]”


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; college; crime; education; fiduciarymalfeasance; fiduciarymisconduct; fraud; gavinnewsom; karenbass; losangeles; scam
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1 posted on 05/08/2025 8:30:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

I feel like I must come up with a racket to get my tax dollars back from the beast. Everyone else is doing it. I know my mother used the stand-in-the-freeway analog.


2 posted on 05/08/2025 8:34:54 AM PDT by crusty old prospector
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To: SeekAndFind

I think Obama did this


3 posted on 05/08/2025 8:41:06 AM PDT by stanne (Because they were mesmerized by Obama, the man for whom this was named, whose name they left out of )
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To: stanne

Yes, both Wayne Allen Root and George Stephanopolis were both enrolled at Columbia in Political Science that same period Barack Obama was enrolled. Neither one ever recall seeing him at Columbia EVER. There were only forty something students in the PolySci program there at the time.
They would have remembered him.


4 posted on 05/08/2025 8:46:54 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: woodbutcher1963

From far-Left Forward:

https://forward.com/fast-forward/173078/barack-obamas-israeli-classmates-dont-remember-him/


5 posted on 05/08/2025 8:52:21 AM PDT by jjotto ( Blessed are You LORD, who crushes enemies and subdues the wicked.)
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To: woodbutcher1963

I think it’s pretty well established that he went to the “pedestrian” Colombia College which at the time was affiliated with Colombia University. The classes back then were separate and often at night. So regular Colombia U students wouldn’t necessarily run into Colombia College counterparts. Now I think the “College” has been fully absorbed into Colombia University.


6 posted on 05/08/2025 8:54:17 AM PDT by Reily
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To: SeekAndFind

This started with FAFSA. You used to have to get a strictly monitored private loan. Now, with FAFSA, scammers can just get fake students a FAFSA number and steal money.


7 posted on 05/08/2025 8:57:43 AM PDT by struggle
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To: struggle

I have real college students and get nothing with the FAFSA. It is a required waste of my time and privacy. I need to get a couple of “ghost” students as well.


8 posted on 05/08/2025 9:03:28 AM PDT by philled
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Seems designed to stir up outrage. No info about how a bot would fake a SS number, for instance. Lots of info needed if you fill out a FAFSA, for instance.
Without details, this article is useless.


9 posted on 05/08/2025 9:04:04 AM PDT by Buck-Toothed Knuckle Dragger
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To: SeekAndFind

Ghost students ...

Ghost voters?
Ghost welfare recipients?
Ghost social security recipients?
Ghost grant recipients?
Ghost civil servants?
Ghost contractors?


10 posted on 05/08/2025 9:09:39 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: NorthMountain

Don’t forget the dreaded ghost guns.


11 posted on 05/08/2025 9:12:30 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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To: Reily

There is also this guy:

https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/recollections-of-obamas-ex-roommate/

Who says he a Barack were roomy’s at the time. They used to take long walks around NYC and jog in Central Park together.
Phil Boerner said that both he a Barack transferred into Columbia as Juniors from Occidental College.

Funny, I transferred to SUNY ESF / Syracuse U as a Junior in 1983. Around the same time. I also only had about 30 people in my major. We were all in the same classes.
I had several roomates that remember me over that two year period. Plus dozens of others. Some of which I still keep in contact after 40 years.

So, it still seems kind of fishy to me.


12 posted on 05/08/2025 9:14:11 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: SeekAndFind

The bass turds on the far left love to talk about “ghost guns.” They are the Kings and Queens of Ghost People STEALING FROM THE U.S. TAXPAYERS. There are more people receiving U.S. Government money than there are on the whole damn planet.


13 posted on 05/08/2025 9:15:11 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (We now have RAT activists interpreting their version of the Constitution. Who needs da Supremes?)
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To: SeekAndFind

Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for the scam to grow.


14 posted on 05/08/2025 9:23:21 AM PDT by vpintheak (Screw the ChiComms! America first!)
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To: SeekAndFind

The problem with ghost publik skrewl students dwarfs this.


15 posted on 05/08/2025 9:25:14 AM PDT by mewzilla (Swing away, Mr. President, swing away!)
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To: Resolute Conservative

Leftists hate “ghost guns”. They perpetrate the other types of ghosts ...


16 posted on 05/08/2025 9:30:05 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Buck-Toothed Knuckle Dragger

“No info about how a bot would fake a SS number”

Probably stolen. Plus there’s all those Biden “importees” that were given an SS number.


17 posted on 05/08/2025 9:49:37 AM PDT by Valpal1 (Not even the police are safe from the police!!!)
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To: SeekAndFind; lightman

Nicht so gut!

If they tried that at MIT, they would be exposed in less than a semester!


18 posted on 05/08/2025 10:17:02 AM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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To: SeekAndFind

This is hilarious.


19 posted on 05/08/2025 10:28:50 AM PDT by Thud
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To: philled

Yeah, during the time before FAFSA, my bachelors cost $900 for a full semester of classes.

During my master’s before FAFSA, a full semester cost $3000 at a PRIVATE college.


20 posted on 05/08/2025 11:56:32 AM PDT by struggle
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