Open Admissions, Open Exposure: How to Stop Financial Aid Fraud Before It Starts

Community colleges exist to create opportunity. An open admissions policy means nearly anyone who wants an education can enroll and start learning, and admissions decisions are often automatic. Bad actors found that opening and used stolen identities to apply for financial aid. The same stolen identities turn up at multiple institutions, and the Department of Education's updated risk-scoring model now pushes more students into additional verification.

In this session, we'll be joined by Patrick Burns, CIO at Yavapai College, to walk through how his team runs roughly 5,000 IAL2 identity checks a year across admissions, financial aid, and the IT service desk. You'll learn how to:

• Stop applicants at the door: Verify identity at IAL2 before an applicant reaches your ERP, rather than flagging a stolen identity after aid is already in motion.
• Replace the scheduled Zoom call: Verification that once meant booking a video call and hoping the applicant showed up now averages about three minutes.
• Give every team the same tool: Set permissions by department so admissions, financial aid, and the service desk each work the way they need to.