Grand Rapids Community College has seen an exponential increase in fraudulent applications since the start of 2024.
“Probably a year ago we started seeing some strange things,” said Executive Director of Enrollment Services Lori Cook. “For instance, we would get 50 (applications) where the first names all started with the same letter or they all had Outlook emails. That’s not a common email address we see or the email address wasn’t matching the name. Now, obviously, anybody can have any email address, but it just seemed very odd that you applied under John Smith, but your email was Lisa Smith.”
Cook explained that these applications would typically arrive in the system all at once. Upon reviewing them, the admissions office would find that some applications were missing phone numbers or connected to invalid phone numbers. Others contained invalid addresses or featured homes that were listed for sale on Zillow.
If false applications were accepted into GRCC, real people and their credit cards unknowingly paid the price.
The Collegiate obtained four GRCC Police reports regarding fraudulent admissions filed between January and July of 2024 using the Freedom of Information Act. The first instance of fraud was reported on Jan. 17 when a federal financial aid refund check of $5,090.50 was issued to a student whose information all “appears to be fictitious.”
The alleged student enrolled in 18 credit hours at the college and paid tuition with a credit card before proceeding to drop all their classes within the same hour. While looking into the claim, the responding officer was unable to find any record of a student with the given name and date of birth on file with the Secretary of State. Additionally, there was no apparent connection between the student’s given name and the name on the credit card used to pay.
The credit card payment was nullified by the cardholder, and the college proceeded to issue a refund through BankMobile, a third party delivery service, for a payment it never received, according to the report.
As of Nov. 8, this case remains open.
“They’re hoping to eventually get some kind of refund or money, either via financial aid or through when they withdraw from classes,” Cook said.
The second instance of this was reported to GRCCPD on March 4, when a woman who is not a GRCC student saw a $2,676.14 charge from the online cashier’s office on her card.
Similar to the previous instance, the alleged student who charged the complainant’s card enrolled, paid tuition and immediately dropped all classes. Student Financial Services attempted to contact the student but found that the email and phone number on file were both invalid.
The complaint told GRCCPD she would not like to file charges against whoever used her card and was able to get the charge removed by her credit card company. This case has been closed due to lack of a suspect.
Moreso, a man reached out to GRCCPD on May 20 after being told by Credit Karma that his credit score dropped 100 points, likely due to the fact he had two college loans. The complainant was told by the Federal Financial Aid Department that he had two loans from GRCC, despite never attending the college.
Student Financials Functional Analyst Kevin Perrin found that the complainant had registered for online classes in fall of 2023 and winter of 2024, and found two respective loans for $2,822 and $6,790.50.
The complainant told GRCCPD he believes someone stole his identity and pointed to his ex-wife as a potential suspect but did not give the responding officer her name.
Erica Manning, Admissions and Student Services Functional Analyst, found that the complainant’s address and the one on the initial admissions application were very different. Additionally, Manning discovered that the complainant had never physically swiped his card on campus.
The responding officer contacted Registrar Lakisha Beck, who later informed the officer that the complainant was a victim of fraud.
The officer also attempted to contact Scott Wingle from the U.S. Department of Education regarding the report but did not receive a response. Thus, this case is closed.
GRCCPD successfully turned over a July 25 report to Wingle after a third complainant contacted the police department after seeing a $1,750 charge to his credit card from Grand Rapids that was not opened by him.
More cases of fraud have been discovered on various parts of campus. According to a document submitted to the Office of Inspector General, obtained by the Collegiate through a FOIA request, “A faculty member identified 18 different students (in three of the faculty member’s course sections) who purportedly fabricated all of their coursework using artificial intelligence. Twelve of those students were enrolled in the same course section. None of the students responded to the faculty member’s feedback or attempts to contact them throughout the semester.”
Other similarities have been found between false applications, such as students typically over the age of 30, in their first semester of college and an address unassociated with Kent County.
However, this issue does not appear to be unique to GRCC.
“It does seem to be more of a community college thing,” Cook said. “… We’re all getting hit likely because community colleges have easier admissions policies.”
When asked how many fraudulent applications the college has seen, Cook replied, “hundreds.”
