[jccalhoun]

I'm a prof at a community college and I encountered this last semester. I was teaching an online class of 30 and 3-4 were definitely "fake" students. A college had about half her students turn out to be "fake."

Students had to do discussion board posts and these students responses all had html formatting as if they were indented replies from an email chain. The clincher was one of them posted in the introduction message board, "Hello, I am a student in [insert city] and I'm studying..."

We had been warned that these "students" were coming because we are part of a system of schools and the schools earlier in the alphabet had encountered it in the semesters before us. So the school had contracted with some id verification system and those students got kicked out pretty quickly.

[apothegm]

What’s the point of sending a fake student to a community college? What’s the end goal of the people running these bots?

[UncleMeat]

Financial aid fraud.

[nonethewiser]

How are they able to profit off that? Doesnt the school cost money which the aid would just reimburse?

[wildzzz]

The community college tuition is free but the state will give you some money to help cover living expenses while you study.

[nonethewiser]

So then anyone could do this even if they arent a bot?

[jccalhoun]

Community college isn't free but it is much less than 4 year colleges. You can take out loans that will cover things like books and other expenses. I'm not in financial aid so I don't know exactly how it works. I assume they aren't really "bots" but are people in another country who have faked an identity. Anyone could do it but if they used their real name the government will find them eventually. As faculty I could look at the "student's" schedule and see they were taking multiple online classes from different campuses in our system. I called the number on their accounts and two of them were no answer and the third I called was someone else who didn't know that name.

I assume that one person is running accounts for multiple "students" and from the boiler plate that one person submitted I wouldn't be surprised if it was an organized business like many internet/phone scams.

[imtringued]

They should give you interest free loans with generous payment schedules starting one year after graduation.

[UncleMeat]

Tuition aid mediated through a school's financial office is not the only form of aid.

[weard_beard]

They don't pay the school.

[EDEdDNEdDYFaN]

literally in the first few paragraphs of the linked article?

[jccalhoun]

financial aid fraud

[ourmandave]

They steal any loan and aid money that in excess of the tuition.

[ntlk]

Training data?