The FAFSA Fraud Economy: Stolen Identities And Lost Millions
Dr. David Maimon
August 27, 2025
Imagine discovering that someone has not only stolen your identity, but used it to enroll in college, collect thousands of dollars in federal financial aid, and then vanished — leaving you to clean up the mess. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. It’s happening thousands of times across America as fraudsters exploit weaknesses in the student aid system, turning what should be a pathway to education into a sophisticated criminal enterprise.
The numbers are staggering. In 2024, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District received roughly 26,000 applications, of which about 10,000 were flagged for possible fraud before the start of the quarter. Century College reported fraud rates comparable to those seen in the Foothill-De Anza Community College District. Minnesota’s Riverland Community College averaged more than 100 potentially fraudulent applications annually over the last two financial aid cycles. Most shocking, the College of Southern Nevada accumulated $7.43 million in debt during the Fall 2024 semester due to fraudulent student enrollments, money they were required to repay to the U.S. Department of Education.
