Somali Family Service, one of the groups receiving state anti-hate money, hosted immigrant families, refugees and asylum seekers at a resource fair in San Diego on Sept. 9, 2023.
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Kristian Carreon
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CalMatters
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Topline:
California recently awarded $91 million in grants to local organizations that help prevent hate crimes or support survivors, part of an unprecedented effort to combat hate in a state that saw a 20% increase in such crimes in 2022.
Why now: Despite its progressive reputation, California last year reported steep increases in hate crimes against transgender people (up 55%), Muslims (up 39%) and Black people (up 27%), according to the Attorney General’s office. That growth outpaced similar hate growth trends in 42 major cities, according to a soon to be released study by Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
Who gets the grants? The grants will go to more than 170 community groups at a time when the state is experiencing a steady clip in high-profile hate incidents — from the August murder of a Southern California store owner who flew a rainbow flag, and the recent evacuation of an Oakland elementary school after a racist bomb threat, to the fiery debates over rights of transgender students at various school boards.
Read on ... to find out more about efforts around the state to combat the rise in hate crimes.
California recently awarded $91 million in grants to local organizations that help prevent hate crimes or support survivors, part of an unprecedented effort to combat hate in a state that saw a 20% increase in such crimes in 2022.
Despite its progressive reputation, California last year reported steep increases in hate crimes against transgender people (up 55%), Muslims (up 39%) and Black people (up 27%), according to the Attorney General’s office.
That growth outpaced similar hate growth trends in 42 major cities, according to a soon to be released study by Cal State San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
The state’s latest Stop the Hate grants bring its non-law enforcement anti-hate spending to more than $200 million since 2021, more than any other state, advocates say.
The grants will go to more than 170 community groups at a time when the state is experiencing a steady clip in high-profile hate incidents — from the August murder of a Southern California store owner who flew a rainbow flag, and the recent evacuation of an Oakland elementary school after a racist bomb threat, to the fiery debates over rights of transgender students at various school boards.
California in the past year created a commission to study the state of hate and set up a hotline for people to report incidents to its Civil Rights Department. The state also put together a team of mediators to address conflicts in communities.
'Swap meet of hate'
Both Sacramento and Los Angeles saw record levels of hate crimes in 2022, according to the study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, which independently analyzes data from local law enforcement agencies.
Researchers say that while the state’s reported hate crime numbers appear to be dipping slightly in 2023, the upcoming presidential election is likely to turn up the temperature even more.
“We are very concerned about an increase next year,” said Brian Levin, a study author and member of the 9-month-old Commission on the State of Hate. He told fellow commissioners last month: “Mainstream politics has gotten not only more tribal, but also more bigoted.”
Levin said in an interview with CalMatters that hate crimes historically rise in response to political speech and current events. But in recent years such spikes have lasted longer, such as when anti-Black crimes remained elevated months after 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests.
Social media provides “a 24-7 swap meet of hate,” he said. “We’re having a significant increase in hate crimes, and hate crimes are getting more violent. But we’re also having more reporting, particularly in certain areas.”
Hate crimes are notoriously difficult to track. Survivors often don’t report them, and local law enforcement agencies vary in how well they monitor them and how much they report to state and federal authorities.
California’s grants aim to help reduce or respond to hate crimes, and to incidents that may not rise to the level of a crime but nevertheless take a toll on an individual or community.
Anti-transgender hate
Terra Russell-Slavin, chief impact officer at the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center, said that center is receiving more hate mail than in the past and recently experienced a credible bomb threat.
“There definitely is increased fear among the community,” she said, adding that the rise in reported hate crimes against transgender people, while troubling, is not surprising.
“This is part of a nationally coordinated attack against our community, and it’s very much targeted at transgender people and particularly trans youth issues,” she said, adding that anti-transgender rhetoric by elected officials “has been field-tested, and frankly it feels like attacking the transgender community is helping rally their base.”
Equality California, an LGBTQ civil rights organization, received a wave of phone calls at the start of pride festival season from people organizing such events in small towns wondering if it was safe, said program director Erin Arendse.
Equality California is using its $630,000 state grant to create a rapid response network that can send staff and resources to local communities when issues arise – such as when a school board is deciding on policies that would out transgender students or ban rainbow flags in classrooms.
“We want to make sure they understand these policies,” Arendse said, “both in terms of how it impacts an individual student and how it turns up the temperature of anti transgender and LGBTQ sentiment and indicates that it’s OK to discriminate against this group of people.”
Black Californians most often affected
In California and nationwide, Black people and communities are the most frequent target of reported hate crimes, data show.
Black people represented 6% of California’s population but about 30% of its reported hate crime victims in 2022, according to the Attorney General’s office. Yet organizations focused on the Black community appear to be receiving a fraction of the grants the state is disbursing.
One group, the Black Youth Leadership Project in Elk Grove, a Sacramento suburb, will use its Stop the Hate funds to provide mental health services — from art therapy to support groups — to Black children who experience racism in school, said Lorreen Pryor, its president.
Lorreen Pryor, president of the Black Youth Leadership Project, said her group was the only Black-led organization on a conference call about the state’s anti-hate hotline. She attended a festival in Elk Grove on Sept. 9, 2023.
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Rahul Lal
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The organization often mediates between schools and outraged parents, advocating for administrators to take parents’ concerns seriously. School bias can range from a teacher using the N-word in class to a Black student being disciplined for behavior that is tolerated from other students, she said.
She added she was surprised to discover that hers was the only Black-led group on a conference call of organizations consulting on the state’s hate hotline.
“We have to focus on the group that is most impacted, and that happens to be Black people,” Pryor said. “And until they do that, it’s all for naught.”
Early focus on anti-Asian hate
California originally created the Stop the Hate grants in response to a surge in anti-Asian hate incidents reported during the Covid-19 pandemic. The coalition Stop AAPI Hate has documented more than 11,000 such incidents nationwide since 2020.
Gov. Newsom signed the Asian Pacific Islander Equity budget in 2021 funding the grants at the urging of the state’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus. Early grants primarily went to organizations serving that community.
The state broadened its most recent round of grants to fund organizations that reflect California’s diversity, said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, the lead organization distributing grants in the Los Angeles region. (The California Department of Social Services awards the grants.)
California’s declining Black population may have depressed the number of Black-led organizations applying for and receiving funding, Kulkarni said.
Some grants will address workplace hate. The NAACP’s California Hawaii State Conference is sponsoring legal consultations for people experiencing discrimination on the job or in housing. And San Francisco-based PRC, which helps Black transgender women reenter the workforce, is using its grant to make a film about its clients’ quest to overcome stigma and find jobs.
Another documentary, produced by teen filmmakers, will chronicle the impact of hate crimes on immigrant and refugee communities in San Diego. Somali Family Service, the non-profit spearheading the project, said it could empower other refugee communities and inspire policymakers to think about solutions.
Most Middle Eastern and North African teenagers the organization serves have experienced or witnessed hate incidents, said Rachel Evans, the group’s youth program manager. Many tell her they stay home from school on September 11, hoping to avoid the racist and anti-Muslim taunts that have come from students, teachers and administrators on that day.
“Many of these youth were not even born when 9/11 happened and they’re experiencing this unjust, ridiculous blame,” said Evans. “They don’t feel welcome in the country based on something that has nothing to do with them.”
Inspiring victims to report hate
California’s hotline offers people who have experienced hate incidents an opportunity to report them, whether or not the incidents were crimes. From its launch in May through the end of August, it has received 361 calls, said the Civil Rights Department, which runs it.
One goal is to reach Californians who are reluctant to contact police or who live in remote areas with few community groups to turn to, department officials said. Callers can learn about the reporting process, file a civil rights complaint, and access counseling, legal services and other support.
Hong Lee knows from experience how important such support can be. Three years ago, while standing in line at a restaurant, Lee turned down a man’s offer of a lunch date and he began yelling anti-Asian and sexist slurs at her. Lee captured the incident on video but a responding police officer called it “normal” and refused to take a report, she said.
A month later Lee realized she was experiencing post-traumatic stress.
“I wasn’t sleeping at night, just staring up at the ceiling,” she said. “I was in complete denial that I needed help at first.”
A friend connected her with LA vs Hate, a Los Angeles-based precursor of the state’s hotline.
It helped her get mental health counseling.
Now Lee works with other hate incident survivors and has started a nonprofit organization, Seniors Fight Back, that provides self-defense classes to elderly Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Her group is not getting a state grant.
Los Angeles-area seniors learn self-defense techniques from Seniors Fight Back, a nonprofit formed in response to attacks against elderly Asians and Pacific Islanders.
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Photo courtesy of Kevin Trinh
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Often people at her classes share that they’ve been physically assaulted, she said, and Lee encourages them to report it, saying that in her case, several other victims recognized the man in her video and he ultimately faced hate crime charges from another incident.
Still, she said, many are reluctant to report. One woman in a self-defense class said she had been assaulted on public transit.
“She had bruises all over her body, but she didn’t want to tell anybody about it,” Lee said. “Two years later, she’s still inside her apartment, because she’s afraid to go outside.”
The Attorney General’s report said anti-Asian hate crimes fell in California by 43% in 2022 but they’re still far above pre-pandemic levels.
While scapegoating Asian Americans for the pandemic has receded nationally, anxiety about the economy and the U.S. relationship with China are driving other forms of anti-Asian racism, Kulkarni said. She cited Florida’s new law that bars Chinese citizens from owning property in much of that state.
Microaggressions still are a common experience among Los Angeles’ Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, Kulkarni said, citing a state-funded study her group is conducting, but people are reporting declines in trauma symptoms when they speak out about their experiences. The AAPI Equity Alliance plans to use the study’s findings to launch support groups for Korean, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino and Japanese Americans in January.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice is using a state grant to build alliances among various ethnic communities to tackle issues that affect all of them, such as safety on public transit and within public housing complexes. Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action, a coalition member, said they’re asking public housing residents such questions as “Would you like to have escorts when you’re running errands? Would you like more opportunities to get to know your neighbors?”
“Safety is a concern for all communities, and it’s the one rallying point for residents and neighbors to come together around,” Choi said. “If we don’t tend to people’s basic needs being met, we are going to continue to see harm happen, whether it’s racially motivated or due to other factors.”
Community conflict resolutions
To help with that progress, the state’s new strike team of trained mediators will provide “immediate, on-the-ground intervention to avoid violence and to reduce tension in something that is live, something that is happening,” said Kevin Kish, director of the Civil Rights Department.
That could mean stepping in after a hate incident to help community members and law enforcement respond or it could mean helping a city council or school board prepare for a contentious meeting, he said.
“Nobody takes a class on how to deal with difficult public meetings,” he said. “People don’t know what to do and sometimes they make mistakes. Part of the value of this program is talking to folks in advance to make a plan for what might happen and how they’re going to respond.”
The mediators are trained in both civil rights and government. They began working together in October, officials said, declining to discuss details of specific cases.
A makeshift memorial for store owner Laura Ann Carleton, 66, who was shot and killed following an argument about a pride flag hanging outside her business in Cedar Glen. August 24, 2023.
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Mario Anzuoni
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Reuters
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Meanwhile the state’s Commission on the State of Hate is monitoring hate activity and hosting public forums. Consisting of activists, researchers, community leaders and law enforcement representatives appointed by the governor and Legislature, it’s required to issue annual reports and to recommend solutions.
Will all this effort actually reduce hate in California? Researchers say that just as bigoted comments by public officials can fuel crimes, when government leaders take strong stands against hate, such incidents decrease.
The Stop the Hate funding to community groups is part of a three-year plan, however it’s unclear whether lawmakers will choose to renew it. The law establishing the Commission on the State of Hate requires it to sunset in 2027.
“The question is, can we make sure the state continues to sustain this level of investment?” Choi asked.
Lee said a key will be more state outreach to grassroots organizations like her self-defense group. “We have the one-on-one connections to people.”
Added Levin, from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism: “This is not something that’s going to be solved by so-called experts and advocates. It’s going to be solved by soccer coaches, principals, community leaders, journalists. We need a whole-community response.”
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published May 19, 2026 5:53 PM
A man casts his ballot during early voting
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Jeff Kowalsky
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Write-in candidates in Southern California are no joke. Election officials require them to qualify. While many are already in, Tuesday is the deadline to be considered. The full list will be released to the public Friday.
The rules: The city of L.A. requires write-in candidates to file a form and pay $300 or submit 500 valid signatures, while other cities may not require anything except paperwork. Qualified candidate names are sent to county election officials and will post the information Friday for voters.
Some write-in candidates: As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, the L.A. County Registrar of Voters listed 20 write-in candidates who filed in California for a wide range of races, from state Assembly and state Senate to governor. Of the 20, 11 filed as write-ins for the governor’s race.
Why it matters: Most write-in campaigns are a long shot but some have won: Lisa Murkowski won an Alaska U.S. Senate seat in 2010; Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony Williams was reelected in 2002.
Who gets counted: Only votes for qualified write-in candidates are counted and certified. Sorry, Mickey Mouse and George Washington.
What's next:Here’s the current list of qualified write-in candidates in L.A. County. Checking the box that says Show only Write In Records will show you write-in candidates. Orange County election officials say they have no write-in candidates.
Matthew Ballinger
is the senior editor for climate and environment coverage at LAist.
Updated May 19, 2026 5:56 PM
Published May 19, 2026 4:02 PM
A fire on Santa Rosa Island has been burning since May 15, 2015. The island is seen here in 1997.
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Carlos Chavez
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
Several fires are burning across Southern California, with some destroying structures, threatening homes and charring pristine landscapes.
Where are the fires? A large fire is burning on Santa Rosa Island in Channel Islands National Park. A fire in Simi Valley has destroyed one home and led to multiple evacuation alerts. Two fires are in Riverside County, and a small fire is in the San Gabriel Mountains.
The forecast: Warm weather and Santa Ana wind conditions have hampered firefighting efforts and are expected to continue through Wednesday this week.
Read on ... for details about the Sandy Fire, Santa Rosa Island Fire and others.
Several fires are burning across Southern California, with some destroying structures, threatening homes and charring pristine landscapes.
Warm weather and Santa Ana wind conditions have hampered firefighting efforts and are expected to continue through Wednesday this week. The National Weather Service forecasts cooler weather and "May gray" through the weekend.
Here's a roundup of some of the fires burning now.
(All dates refer to today, Tuesday, May 19, unless otherwise noted)
The fire is burning in Channel Island National Park territory. Firefighters traveled by boat with their equipment to get to the island, according to news reports. The island is home to rare and endangered plants and animals.
CalFire reported about 2:40 p.m. Tuesday that lessening winds allowed "firefighters to take full advantage of improved weather to strengthen containment lines and continue aggressive suppression efforts. Crews remain actively engaged both on the ground and in the air to gain additional containment and keep the fire within its current perimeter."
The fire started Monday in the southern part of Simi Valley. It eventually spread eastward toward L.A. County communities in the San Fernando Valley, but overnight conditions were favorable to firefighters, CalFire said. Several communities were under evacuation orders and warnings, and schools in the area were closed.
The fire was first reported around noon Tuesday, according to CalFire, near Jurupa Valley (east of the 15 Freeway and south of the 60). CBS News Los Angeles reported that four people have been injured.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
Frank Stoltze
is a veteran reporter who covers local politics and examines how democracy is and, at times, is not working.
Published May 19, 2026 3:42 PM
Supervisor Lindsey Horvath sponsored the motion to create an L.A. County Ethics Commission.
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Screenshot via YouTube broadcast of L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting.
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Topline:
Citing a desire to prevent corruption within county government, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday established Los Angeles County’s first ethics commission.
The backstory: In 2024, voters approved Measure G, which called for the creation of an Ethics Commission and Office of Ethics Compliance. The measure came amid a series of corruption cases at L.A. City Hall but calls for reform spilled over into the county government.
The details: The motion by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and approved by the board Tuesday directs county departments to begin establishing the operational, staffing and legal infrastructure necessary to launch the commission in this year. It also directs staff to prepare a charter amendment for voter consideration on the November ballot to enshrine the commission in the charter.
Composition: Supervisors voted for a plan that calls for a seven-member commission. One member would initially be appointed by the Governance Reform Task Force then by the county executive position to be created in 2029.
Four members would be appointed by the chair of the Board of Supervisors, county assessor, district attorney and sheriff. The final two members would be selected through an application process administered by the Registrar of Voters.
Opposition: Supervisor Janice Hahn supported the overall motion but opposed the composition of the commission, saying too many members were to be appointed by elected officials — the same people the panel would be charged with watchdogging.
History: The county has had its own campaign, lobbying and ethics laws on the books for years, but they were enforced by ethics officers in various departments. The proposal calls for a 54-member ethics office now to enforce them and the commission to impose fines.
Students walk past a sign for a campus financial aid office Dec. 8, 2017.
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Topline:
After a spike in fraudulent applications to California’s community colleges, school officials say they are getting better at detecting and preventing fraud, though it still happens.
Why it matters: Between January and March 2025, scammers stole nearly $5.6 million in federal student aid and over $900,000 in state aid. By comparison, this spring colleges have reported losing just under $1.5 million in federal student aid and about $330,000 in state aid to fraudsters. Last spring was “really the peak,” Hadsell said. He said he anticipates the end-of-year total in 2026 to be “significantly lower” than last year.
The backstory: Last spring, CalMatters reported that colleges were seeing unprecedented reports of fraud, with scammers stealing millions more dollars of student aid than in any previous period, according to reports submitted by colleges to California’s Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.
Read on... for more on how community colleges in the state are cracking down on financial aid fraud.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
California’s community colleges have been battling fraudulent students for years, trying to prevent scammers from stealing financial aid money.
Recent data shows the colleges’ efforts finally may be working.
Last spring, CalMatters reported that colleges were seeing unprecedented reports of fraud, with scammers stealing millions more dollars of student aid than in any previous period, according to reports submitted by colleges to California’s Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.
Now fewer scammers are bypassing colleges’ vetting systems, according to monthly reports, and school administrators say they’re better, though still not perfect, at detecting and preventing fraud.
After CalMatters reported on the rise in fraud last year, Republican U.S. Congress members called for a federal investigation, a Democratic state legislator launched a state audit and later, California’s Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office approved a new ID verification policy for students. Colleges now are more vigilant about policing fraud, said Jory Hadsell, an executive in technology initiatives for the chancellor’s office, who pointed to better filtering practices and new software to detect fraud.
Between January and March 2025, scammers stole nearly $5.6 million in federal student aid and over $900,000 in state aid. By comparison, this spring colleges have reported losing just under $1.5 million in federal student aid and about $330,000 in state aid to fraudsters.
Last spring was “really the peak,” Hadsell said. He said he anticipates the end-of-year total in 2026 to be “significantly lower” than last year.
Even in the worst months, such as last spring, the money distributed to scammers is less than 1% of the total financial aid distributed to community college students in California. Students use the money to help pay for tuition, books and the cost of daily living expenses, such as rent, transportation and food.
But any fraud, however small, is unacceptable, said Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor of finance and strategic initiatives. “The ultimate goal for our system is zero.”
Some anti-fraud policies have been slow to take effect. The California Community Colleges Board of Governors voted nearly a year ago to require ID verification for all students, but only about 50% of college students are doing it as of this month. Hadsell said the delays arose in part because of complications verifying information of students under 18 years old, who represent a growing demographic for the community colleges. He said ID verification, which is currently optional, will become mandatory on July 1.
The board also voted to “explore” the option of charging students an application fee of no more than $10, but with the rates of fraud declining and other solutions that seem to work, the chancellor’s office is no longer pursuing that option, Ferguson said.
After blaming California officials, the U.S. Department of Education, which shares responsibility for administering federal aid and detecting fraud, said it would implement a “screening process” for applicants. It was supposed to take effect last fall but didn’t launch until last month, according to press releases from the department and statements from the California Student Aid Commission. CalMatters reached out to the U.S. Education Department five times over the last 12 months, seeking clarification, but the department has refused to respond to questions about delays with the screening process.
When more than a third of college applicants are fake
After classes suddenly moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office saw an increase in financial aid fraud on their application portal, CCCApply, which is used by nearly every student as the first step in applying to community college.
In 2021, the chancellor’s office suspected roughly 20% of applicants were fraudulent.
The estimate was higher in January 2024, around 25%. Last spring, it was 34%, though some schools saw much higher rates.
After they apply through CCCApply, students get filtered locally at their college of choice. In the Los Rios Community College District, which represents Sacramento, college officials suspected 64% of local applications from January to March 2025 were fraudulent. And that was after the state already vetted them through its portal, said Gabe Ross, a spokesperson for the district. The San Diego and Los Angeles community college districts also reported spikes in the number of fraudulent applications around the same time.
CalMatters reached out to the five largest community college districts for an interview. The Rancho Santiago Community College District, which includes parts of Orange County, did not provide sufficient data to draw conclusions about trends in fraud. The State Center Community College District, which represents schools in Fresno and Madera counties, did not respond to CalMatters’ questions.
Monthly data reports to the chancellor’s office show that once detected, most scammers who applied to community colleges were then caught and kicked out before they could apply for financial aid, but some succeeded.
This year, both Sacramento and San Diego community colleges say they’re seeing fewer attempts at fraud and are getting better at stopping those who try. The San Diego Community College District is now manually screening for fraudulent applications twice a week and is finalizing a contract with a company to help improve its detection software.
CCCApply has improved its filtering process, which helped reduce fraud attempts at Sacramento area colleges, said Ross. “When we talked about such a complex dynamic challenge, it's always hard to identify what's the one thing that sort of moved the needle. The truth is that we needed support from the feds, we needed support from the (chancellor’s) office, and we needed to invest in tools locally.”
This spring, he said the district flagged about 12% of college applications as suspect.
Using AI to detect AI
Measuring fraud is, by definition, imprecise. If a scammer is truly successful, colleges have no way to identify that fraud.
For a long time, administrators assumed bots enrolling in online classes were responsible for most fraudulent attempts. Yet teachers, students and financial aid administrators say some of the scams are more sophisticated now and are coming from real people impersonating students. Many fraudulent applications to Los Angeles’ community colleges have real names, dates of birth, and addresses that are likely “leaked or stolen,” said Nicole Albo-Lopez, the deputy chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District.
In San Diego, Victor DeVore, dean of student services, said the college district only requires ID verification for students flagged as fraudulent. At that point they must prove their identity, either in person or through Zoom. Once, a potentially fraudulent student appeared on Zoom and presented a valid-looking ID that matched their face, but DeVore’s team noticed that the student’s IP address was odd. “One minute they’re logging in from Nairobi, the next minute they'll be logging in from Virginia,” he said, adding that the use of AI, virtual private networks (VPNs) or other technology has made fraud harder to detect.
Students’ personal data is supposed to be private, but school districts and education technology companies are frequently hacked. Last week, Canvas — one of the go-to learning platforms for California’s community colleges, University of California and California State University campuses — went offline temporarily due to a major hack. Its parent company, Instructure, said last week that it reached an agreement with the hackers to relinquish students’ data.
The state has turned to AI to fight fraud. Last summer, the state chancellor’s office negotiated a multimillion dollar contract with N2N Services Inc., enabling any college in the state to access the company’s software at a discounted rate. The software uses AI to detect potentially fraudulent applicants. Colleges are not required to use it, and so far, only about two-thirds do. Some districts, such as the Los Angeles Community College District, use a different fraud detection software, known as Socure.
Colleges and the state chancellor’s office continue to face political pressure and scrutiny of their approach to fraud. Last month, the U.S. Education Department said it had prevented more than $171 million in fraud in California after implementing a new policy regarding ID verification. Hadsell, with the state chancellor’s office, said the federal policy had no impact on California’s colleges. “They issued some interim guidance last year that basically said you should at least have a Zoom call with students and have them show an ID when you're approving their aid. And those were things that were already happening. It was not, you know, some new thing at least for most of our colleges.”
Kiran Kodithala, the CEO of N2N, which collects its own data on fraud at community colleges, said the education department’s claim makes no sense.
“I don’t see how $171 million in fraud in California can occur,” he said. “There’s no basis for those numbers. We’re not seeing anything remotely close.” Kodithala estimates that N2N has prevented over $34 million in fraud since last summer, though his platform is not yet in use by all of California's 116 community colleges.
Collecting more precise data may take months or years. U.S. Representative Young Kim, who represents parts of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, launched the effort for a federal investigation last spring, but her office could not provide any updates or confirm that an investigation was in fact underway. At the state level, the Legislature last year approved conducting an audit of how California’s community colleges handled fraud but the findings won’t be released until this summer.
