The Brief

For years, scammers have targeted community colleges across the state, posing as students in order to steal money from scholarships or government financial aid.

Recent state reports suggest the problem is getting worse, and college leaders say they’re worried that the Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. Department of Education could hamper fraud prevention and investigations.

In 2021, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office reported that about 20% of college applicants were likely fake. In January 2024, the state said it was up to about 25%. 

Now it’s around 34%, according to the most recent data from the last calendar year. “Those are all the ones that are stopped,” said John Hetts, executive vice chancellor for the data team at the chancellor’s office.

The scammers that aren’t stopped have stolen millions in taxpayer dollars. CalMatters reported that these fake students received more than $5 million from the federal government and nearly $1.5 million from the state, according to anonymized reports that colleges submitted to the state from September 2021 through December 2023.

Faculty say they’re exasperated from working as detectives, trying to suss out which students are real. They say scammers are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to infiltrate classes, using tools like ChatGPT to pose as students. Students say these fraudsters are taking coveted seats and preventing them from enrolling in classes they need to graduate.

In the last 12 months, colleges reported giving more than $10 million in federal dollars to fake students and over $3 million in state money. Data from the first few months of 2025 show that colleges have already given away more than $3 million in federal aid and over $700,000 in state dollars.

The scope of fraud is “relatively small,” said Chris Ferguson, a finance executive at the chancellor’s office, especially when compared to the roughly $1.7 billion in federal aid and $1.5 billion in state aid given to California’s community college students last year. He also said it’s likely that colleges have improved their ability to detect fraud over time, potentially inflating the reporting numbers.

State lawmakers have allocated roughly $150 million toward cybersecurity since 2022, and the chancellor’s office has brought in numerous tech companies — including ID.Me, N2N, and LexisNexis — to help authenticate students. But Hetts said none of these interventions will ever completely eliminate fraud because each time the state gets better at fighting fraud, the bad actors adapt — the tech equivalent to the “Red Queen hypothesis.”

College leaders also rely on the federal education department to help find scammers. The department is broadly responsible for administering federal financial aid and for preventing and investigating related fraud. The office that administers federal aid has lost about half of its staff through layoffs, voluntary buyouts and retirements. California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently joined other Democratic attorneys general in suing the Trump administration over these cuts, alleging that they violate the U.S. Constitution.

Although not technically part of the lawsuit or the layoffs, the education department’s Office of Inspector General, which is responsible for fraud detection, has also lost staff due to buyouts and early retirements. Since Oct. 1, the Office of Inspector General has lost “more than 20% of its staff,” said Catherine Grant, a spokesperson for the office, including “experienced auditors and investigators.”

“As for how these staffing changes affect the Office of Inspector General’s ability to investigate student aid fraud in California, we are committed to fighting student aid fraud wherever we find it,” Grant said. “But we are limited with what we can do based on our limited resources.”

Fake students using AI

In 2023, librarian Heather Dodge started to notice something odd about the students who took her online research course at Berkeley City College. To connect with students and make the class more engaging, Dodge said she always began the course by asking students to submit a video introducing themselves using their webcam or an iPhone.

“It’s a very low bar,” she said, but “I started noticing that there would be a handful of students that wouldn’t submit that assignment in the first week.” First, she would send them a message, and then, if they still didn’t respond, she’d drop them from the class.

As long as the teacher drops a student within a certain time frame, in this case the first week, their enrollment in that class is void, and the student can’t seek financial aid for that course. After the first week, however, it’s harder to remove them.

This semester, she said she started with 35 students. Within the first week, she kicked out a few students who didn’t submit a video, but four students found a workaround, sending her a written response instead. The text was generic, she said, “like something ChatGPT would write,” but she wasn’t willing to drop them from the course.

“Are these students who are having technological challenges? Maybe they didn’t have a webcam, maybe they didn’t understand the assignment. It was really hard to suss out what was going on with them.”

Dodge said she’s also worried about how it looks to drop so many students in a class. Community colleges’ funding is largely pegged to enrollment, and the Peralta Community College District, where Dodge teaches, is suffering from enrollment declines and faces major financial losses. “If they see I’m running a class that starts with 35 students and ends with 15, that looks terrible.”

Throughout the class, the four suspicious students continued to submit generic assignments, and eventually, she said she reached out to each one to set up a Zoom meeting. Two never responded. One student did meet with her but said that their camera and microphone weren’t working, so they texted instead. The other student appeared on camera but could hardly speak English, Dodge said. Each time she would ask a question over Zoom, the student would silently wait for their phone to translate. She said the student’s answers “were basically nonsensical.”

Bots impersonate homeless students, former foster youth 

By statute, California’s community colleges are required to accept any legitimate student, and state leaders have spent decades trying to make it easier for students to enroll. Community college students must sign an affidavit, swearing the veracity of their information, but otherwise, many colleges don’t independently verify a student’s address or identity.

“We serve a large proportion of students who may not have documentation for a variety of reasons,” said Hetts, with the state chancellor’s office, such as students who are homeless, those who are undocumented, and those who are leaving the foster care system or don’t have a relationship with their parents.

Students walk through the MiraCosta College campus in Oceanside on Sept. 26, 2024.

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Adriana Heldiz

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CalMatters

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The state chancellor’s office contracted with ID.Me to provide verification through the state’s college application portal, but students aren’t required to use it. However, local districts can impose more stringent requirements.

For a while, Nicole Albo-Lopez, the deputy chancellor for the Los Angeles Community College District said her district was more lenient with college applicants who appeared to be homeless or former foster youth, but “the bots figured that out.”

Last year, she said the district purged roughly a quarter of all class registrations because of potentially fraudulent activity and changed its policy, requiring almost all students to verify their identity. It also paid Socure, an identity verification company, just over $250,000 to help with its fraud detection.

But fraud attempts persisted nonetheless. As wildfires raged through Los Angeles County in January and community colleges raised millions to support students who lost their homes, scammers swooped in. Enrollment at East Los Angeles College suddenly doubled that month, but many of the students were likely fake, said Albo-Lopez. “People probably thought there was going to be fire money.”

At the San Diego Community College District, where instances of fraud are also on the rise, Student Services Dean Victor DeVore said his district has found potentially fraudulent students who passed the ID.Me verification process. Now, he said his district screens all applicants, even those who have verified their identity through ID.Me.

Dodge said she asked administrators at the Peralta Community College District for help with all four suspicious students in her class since she no longer had the authority to drop them from the course. The district ultimately removed both students who had agreed to meet with her over Zoom, but she said that the other two students — the ones who never responded — are still in the course. Mark Johnson, a spokesperson for the district, said that those two students are “under review at this time.”

Regardless, Dodge said that both students failed the class.

FBI investigates fraud

Colleges are required to submit monthly reports about suspicious applications to both the state and to the U.S. Department of Education, though colleges say the federal government rarely informs them about what it does with that information.

Through a public records request, CalMatters found that in June 2022, the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into a fraud ring at Los Angeles Harbor College and West Los Angeles College, where scammers used the identities of “at least 57 individuals” to steal more than $1.1 million in federal aid and loans over the prior four years. In another memo, the Department of Education alerted the FBI about a fraud ring tied to Los Angeles City College that was enrolling people in classes “for the sole purpose of obtaining financial aid refund money,” potentially stealing over $1 million using the identities of 70 different people.

Grant said the education department is still working on the Los Angeles fraud investigations but declined to comment on them, since the department has a policy of keeping information about ongoing investigations confidential.

Since 2020, the education department has also investigated financial aid disbursements at Merced College, Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz County and College of the Siskiyous in Weed. Another four California community colleges have reached out to the department for help regarding fraud or concerns about the misuse of federal aid, according to the department’s records.

Community college leaders say they wish they heard more from the federal government about its fraud investigations, and some say the silence is worrisome, especially now that the education department has lost so many staff.

For Hetts, with the chancellor’s office, it’s a direct correlation: “When you direct less resources to combating fraud…you’re going to get more fraud.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Singer D4vd has been charged with murder in the death of a 14-year-old girl who was last known to be alive nearly a year ago and whose dismembered and decomposed body was found in September in his apparently abandoned Tesla, prosecutors said Monday.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said the 21-year-old D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. She was reported missing by her family in 2024, when she was 13. Authorities, who described her Monday as a “runaway,” said she was 14 when she was killed.

A criminal complaint says he had engaged in continuous sexual abuse of Rivas Hernandez from September 2023 to September 2024.

Prosecutors allege he killed her using a sharp object on or around April 23, 2025 — the date she was last known to be alive and was headed to the singer’s house in the Hollywood Hills — and mutilated her body about two weeks later.

The murder charges included special circumstances — lying in wait, committing crime for financial gain and murdering the witness in an investigation — that could carry the death penalty. Prosecutors haven’t announced whether they will seek it. Burke is also charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a person under 14 and mutilating a body.

Attorneys for the Houston-born alt-pop singer said he was innocent in a statement released after homicide detectives arrested him on Thursday at a home in Hollywood.

“Let us be clear — the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death,” the lawyers said. A new request for comment to Burke’s lawyers on the charges was not immediately answered.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman called the case “a parent’s nightmare.”

“Celeste, a 14-year-old at that time, went to Mr. Burke’s house in the Hollywood Hills. She was never heard from again,” Hochman said at Monday’s press conference.

The long-dead body of Rivas Hernandez was found inside a Tesla that was towed from the Hollywood Hills on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. Her family had reported her missing from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles.

Authorities did not publicly name Burke as a suspect until his arrest. And his lawyers’ statement last week, in which said they “will vigorously defend David’s innocence,” was the first time they weighed in publicly.

The singer had been under investigation by an LA County grand jury looking into the death. The probe was officially secret, but its existence — and his designation as its target — was revealed in February when his mother, father and brother objected in a Texas court to subpoenas demanding they testify.

The 2023 Tesla Model Y was registered in the singer’s name at the Texas address of his subpoenaed family members, according to court filings from prosecutors. It had been towed from an upscale Hollywood Hills neighborhood where it had been sitting as though it was abandoned.

Police investigators searching the Tesla in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odor of decay,” court documents said. Detectives partially unzipped a bag and found a head and torso.

Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office removed the bag and “discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” according to court documents. A second black bag was found under the first, and dismembered body parts were inside it. No cause of death has been publicly revealed, and police got a judge to block the release details of the autopsy. On Friday, the medical examiner told The Associated Press the court order remained in place after Burke’s arrest, and suggested to ask the police whether they would ask to lift it. Hochman said Monday that the coroner’s report would be released “shortly.”

The family of Rivas Hernandez has remained private and has not made any public statements on her death or the case.

“I had the chance to meet with some of the family members of Celeste and their grief in incalculable as to what happened to their daughter,” Hochman said.

D4vd, pronounced “David,” gained popularity among Gen Z for his blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit “Romantic Homicide,” which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP “Petals to Thorns” and a follow-up, “The Lost Petals,” in 2023.

The Associated Press confirmed that D4vd was dropped by Interscope last year.

When the body was discovered, the singer continued his North American tour, but when reports of his possible involvement spread widely, he canceled the final two shows and a European tour that was to follow.

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AP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed reporting from New York.

The post Singer D4vd charged with murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, found dismembered in his car appeared first on LA Local.

Former state Controller Betty Yee dropped out from the governor’s race on Monday, saying she couldn’t see a path to get donors and additional support from undecided voters with six weeks left before the primary.

“It was becoming clear that the donors were not going to be there,” she said. “Even some of my former supporters just felt like they needed to move on as well.”

She did not immediately endorse another candidate, but said she would do so in the next few days.

Yee was one of the earliest to enter the race, announcing her candidacy more than two years ago. She ran on her experience handling the state budget and her family’s middle-class, immigrant background.

A progressive who supported continuing the state’s greenhouse gas reduction mandates, Yee also emphasized her ability to balance the budget and spoke often about the importance of growing the state’s economy and auditing state programs for fraud. In recent days, she had begun styling herself as “Boring Betty,” promising drama-free state government experience.

But pragmatism never translated into star power. Yee has stayed at or near the bottom of the polls, never garnering more than about 3% of likely voters, and consistently lagged in fundraising.

That made her one of California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks’ unnamed targets of a public campaign to pressure lower-polling Democrats to drop out of the race. With many Democrats in the race potentially splitting the liberal vote, Democrats were concerned two Republicans could possibly win the top-two primary election in June.

Yee, the former vice chair of the party, insisted she had grassroots support and wouldn’t be forced out of the race by a slate of wealthy, male candidates. She and the other candidates of color banded together to denounce their exclusion from a USC candidate debate last month after the university used a formula based on polling and fundraising to decide who to invite. The debate was ultimately canceled.

“This has been my life story, frankly, as a woman of color,” she told reporters in March. “I’ve been overlooked, I’ve been underestimated and pushed aside.”

The chances of Democrats getting locked out of the general election have gone down since former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out over a week ago over sexual assault allegations and after President Donald Trump endorsed Steve Hilton on the Republican side.

But Yee has little cash on hand to continue, and the race is entering its most expensive phase yet with multiple candidates launching television ads last week.

Her exit leaves only one woman in the race, former Rep. Katie Porter.

Like Swalwell, Yee dropped out after a March state deadline to file or withdraw for the race, so her name will remain on the ballot in June.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

April 30 is your last chance to claim any cash you qualify for with California’s Middle Class Tax Refund — a one-time payment approved by state lawmakers back in 2022.

According to the Franchise Tax Board — the California agency responsible for these funds — 32 million residents received a total of $9.2 billion in payments.

MCTR payments ranged from $200 to $1,050, and what you got depended on how you filed your 2020 tax return. For example, if you listed yourself as a single filer and made less than $75,000, you qualified for $350. If you filed jointly with your spouse and listed a dependent, and made less than $150,000, you were eligible for $1,050. The program even included taxpayers making up to $500,000 if they filed jointly.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators approved MCTR payments as a response to the jump in gasoline prices that came after the United States banned Russian oil imports at the start of 2022.

More than 7 million Californians received the funds through direct deposit — but another 9.6 million people received the rebate through a debit card that was mailed to the address listed on their 2020 tax return.

Recent data from the FTB shows that 90% of cards have been activated over the last four years. But around 57% of these activated cards still have some balance on them — meaning around $2.95 billion in total funds have yet to be used by Californians.

If you’ve ever received a MCTR card in the mail, you have till April 30 before the card expires — and you lose the funds it contains.

Keep reading for what to know about claiming your possible MCTR cash before the end of the month.

How do I know if I qualified for this money?

If you can find them, check your 2020 tax returns — because while the MCTR program began in 2022, what taxpayers received was based on how they filed back in 2020.

April 30 is the deadline to claim any remaining funds from California’s 2022 Middle Class Tax Refund. The state’s Franchise Tax Board said 32 million residents have already received $9.2 billion in payments.

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Diego Cervo

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State officials set up several tiers that decide how much taxpayers get from MCTR, based on their income:

• Tier 1: If you filed single in 2020 and made up to $75,000, you qualified for $350 of MCTR money, plus an additional $350 if you had at least one dependent. If you filed jointly and made up to $150,000 together, you qualified for $700 and an additional $350 if you had at least one dependent.
• Tier 2: If you filed single in 2020 and made up to $125,000, you qualified for $250, plus an additional $250 if you had at least one dependent. If you filed jointly and made up to $250,000 together, you qualified for $500 and an additional $250 if you had at least one dependent.
• Tier 3: If you filed single in 2020 and made up to $250,000, you qualified for $200, plus an additional $200 if you had at least one dependent. If you filed jointly and made up to $500,000 together, you qualified for $200 and an additional $400 if you had at least one dependent.

If I qualified for an MCTR debit card, when did I receive it?

The FTB said it mailed out all debit cards between October 2022 and January 2023 — and that it then sent reminder letters in spring 2023 and spring 2024 to taxpayers who had not activated their cards yet.

After April 30, your card will no longer work anywhere, and you will no longer have access to this money.

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Each card came in its own window envelope with “California Middle Class Tax Refund” printed on the return address.

The state flag’s grizzly bear and the state seal are printed on the front side of all MCTR cards, and all have the same expiration date: “04/26”

“Cardholders are urged to spend their funds or transfer them to a bank account by April 30, 2026,” a spokesperson for the FTB told KQED in an emailed statement.

After April 30, your card will no longer work anywhere, and you will no longer have access to this money.

How do I know how much money I have left on my card?

The MCTR cards are administered by a private company called Money Network. You can either call Money Network’s customer service line at 1-800-240-0223 or create an account at the MCTR website set up by the company.

Keep in mind that you will be asked to confirm the number on your card and your entire Social Security number. You can also register your debit card on Money Network’s app.

If there are two names printed on your card — which usually happens for taxpayers who filed jointly — you can register your card using the name that appears above the other.

I found my MCTR card, but I’m having trouble using it

While the FTB tracks MCTR funds, Money Network — the private company that made the cards — is now responsible for helping cardholders. If you have never used your card, it’s possible that the security controls on the card placed it on hold.

“This is a standard fraud-prevention measure and does not mean the funds are unavailable,” the FTB said.

To get rid of the hold and start using your card, you’ll have to contact Money Network’s customer service at 800-240-0223. Customer service representatives are available on weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“Callers should have their personal information available to verify their identity,” the FTB wrote. “We advise people to call the Money Network Customer service line as early in the day as possible.”

There have been reported cases of cardholders calling Money Network and not getting a hold of anyone. State officials did not provide specific information on what other options taxpayers have if they cannot reach Money Network staff. KQED also reached out to Fiserv, the parent company of Money Network, which declined an interview.

I lost my MCTR debit card. Can I request a replacement?

Unfortunately, not any more, as April 8 was the last day to request a replacement card. State officials say this last day was chosen to ensure recipients would definitely get their new card before the program ends on April 30.

If you do know where your card is, but want to temporarily lock it to prevent anyone else from using it, you can prevent unauthorized transactions by logging into your card’s account at the MCTR website.

And if you just never got a card, it’s possible that you received this money via direct deposit to the bank account you listed when filing your 2020 taxes.

What will happen to all the money that’s not claimed?

State law requires that all unused funds still remaining on expired credit cards be transferred to the state’s General Fund, where the money for these payments originally came from.

This will affect both activated and unactivated cards.