2025-119 California Community Colleges — Financial Aid and Enrollment
Audit Scope and Objectives
The audit by the California State Auditor will provide independently developed and verified information related to financial aid and enrollment oversight at the California Community Colleges (CCC). The audit’s scope will include, but not be limited to, the following activities:
- Review and evaluate the laws, rules, and regulations significant to the audit objectives.
- To the extent possible, for the CCC statewide system, determine the following by year starting in 2020:
- The number of fictitious students enrolled, denied enrollment, and disenrolled. Compare these numbers to total enrollment.
- Any trends in fraudulent enrollments, such as preferred course types or targeted colleges.
- The amount of federal, state, and local financial aid and other forms of assistance that have been provided to fictitious students. To the extent possible, determine the amount recovered.
- Determine the impact that removing fictitious students has had on CCC Full-time Equivalent Students calculations and funding allocations and identify the consequences of enrolling fictitious students, such as canceling classes, offering unnecessary course sections, or displacing real students.
- Identify any systemic weaknesses individuals may exploit to enroll fictitious students, including the use of artificial intelligence for such purposes. Identify policy and regulatory recommendations that would reduce the number of fictitious student applications and enrollments and reduce financial aid fraud by individuals using these methods.
- Evaluate the Chancellor’s Office’s actions related to combating financial aid fraud, including the following:
- The tools, technologies, and protocols used to detect and prevent fraudulent enrollment and aid disbursement, including whether these efforts were effective in reducing fraudulent enrollments.
- Whether any of those tools, technologies, and protocols have the potential to deny admission for legitimate students and identify the processes in place for those individuals to prove their identities.
- Best practices or other guidance that the Chancellor’s Office provided to the community colleges and faculty about how they should address students believed to be fictitious.
- Evaluate the use of any funding the State provided to the CCC for cybersecurity, including efforts to combat enrollment and financial aid fraud. Determine the amount received and spent and the amount specifically spent to address the issue of fictitious students.
- For a selection of three community colleges—which should include a college with small enrollment, one with medium enrollment, and one with large enrollment—review the steps each has taken to address fraudulent enrollment and aid disbursement. In doing so, identify the following:
- In what ways fraud prevention efforts vary among the selected colleges.
- Whether any barriers exist that prevent colleges with relatively fewer resources from effectively addressing fraudulent enrollments.
- Review and assess any other issues that are significant to the audit.
