They’re called “Pell runners” — after enrolling at a community college they apply for a federal Pell grant, collect as much as $7,400, then vanish.
Since fall 2021, California’s community colleges have given more than $5 million to Pell runners, according to monthly reports they sent to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. Colleges also report they’ve given nearly $1.5 million in state and local aid to these scammers.
The chancellor’s office began requiring the state’s 116 community colleges to submit these reports three years ago, after fraud cases surged.
At the time, the office said it suspected 20% of college applicants were fraudulent. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government loosened some restrictions around financial aid, making it easier for students to prove they were eligible, and provided special one-time grants to help keep them enrolled. Once these pandemic-era exceptions ended in 2023 and some classes returned to in-person instruction, college officials said they expected fraud to subside.
It hasn’t. In January, the chancellor’s office suspected 25% of college applicants were fraudulent, said Paul Feist, a spokesperson for the office.
“This is getting significantly worse,” said Todd Coston, an associate vice chancellor with the Kern Community College District. He said that last year, “something changed and all of a sudden everything spiked like crazy.”
Online classes that historically don’t fill up were suddenly overwhelmed with students — a sign that many of them might be fake — Coston said. Administrators at other large districts, including the Los Rios Community…
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