By Professor Doom
While both
universities and community colleges practice many of the same frauds, one fraud
in particular is most common by far at the community college: Pell Grant fraud.
A Pell Grant is
basically free money, close to $6,000, available for a student to take college
courses. Of course, “college course” is defined by admin, and our campuses are
loaded down with fake courses that aren’t remotely college level.
She pulled his student-aid record and discovered that he had received aid from seven other colleges. When she requested transcripts, he vanished.
This fraud is
particularly bad at community colleges because they keep tuition low, and any
“surplus” money from the Pell Grant is “returned” to the student. Thus, a
community college that charges $2,000 tuition for a semester, after two
semesters, will “refund” (I quote these words, because these are the words
community colleges use to describe what they do) the remaining money to the
student.
I used to teach
at a fake community college; I taught a math course little different than the 3rd
grade math course taught in the primary school down the road. I’d have 30
students show up the first day out of 40 on the roster. A month or so later,
and it would be “check day,” the day when the community college would “refund”
the Pell Grant money to the students.
The students
would line up, get their checks, go home…and I’d have 5 students show up in
class for the rest of the semester. The 10 that never showed up even once would
nevertheless get checks mailed to their homes; the main reason these kids never showed up is
because they lived in a different state, hundreds of miles away. I could report
them for fraud and have them dropped from the course, but then I’d have “low
retention” and risk being fired for being a “bad teacher.”
The amount of
fraud involved with Pell Grant is jaw dropping; we have tribes of nomadic
students wandering from campus to campus, signing up for bogus courses, getting
their Pell Grant money, and then moving on to another campus. Estimates
on the level of fraud are extremely low compared
to what I’ve seen with my own eyes:
One expert,
Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org, believes that Pell grant fraud still runs at about 3.6 percent or more than $1
billion a year.
Wow, if it was
only a billion a year fraud, that would be tiny. But, I know full well faculty
are discouraged from reporting the fraud, and administrators get pay raises
provided they don’t see the fraud (more accurately, they get pay raises for
“growing” the institution). I’d say 25%, bare minimum, of the student base at a
typical cheap community college is Pell Grant fraud related…there’s really no
way to know since the whole system is set up to not see the fraud no matter how
obvious.
Louisiana’s
technical colleges, which focus on job training, until recently charged less
than $1,000 per year to attend. But they found a couple years ago that as much as 12 percent of
grant money went to Pell runners.
It’s the low
tuition that really ramps up the fraud at the community (or technical)
colleges. “Free money for signing up” is one *heck* of a great business plan.
Administrators get huge bonuses for finding people who want free money…yeah,
it’s a tough job.
Not long
ago at a North Carolina community college, there always seemed to be fewer cars
in the parking lot the week after Pell grant checks were sent out.
--The
phenomenon observed above is everywhere. At my own fake school (not in NC), the
rosters would say we had a 1,000 students enrolled in classes…but there’d only
be a dozen cars in the parking lot at best, easily counted with my own eyeballs.
Pell Grant fraud is NOT 3.6%, I promise you. Who would notice a 3.6% drop in
cars at a parking lot?
In 2012, Obama did
something decent: he shut down the Pell Grant fraud, at least for Summer
classes. Naturally, community college attendance over the summer dropped 30% or
more (seriously, 3.6% is a ridiculously
low estimate of the fraud…). And, naturally, the Poo Bahs complained that they
really needed to be able to keep passing out free checks to meet their growth
goals.
Now, don’t get me
wrong, I actually believe students should be allowed/encouraged to educate
themselves over the summer, and, especially for job training programs, there’s
no rational reason to not take summer classes. Unfortunately, the massive,
massive fraud of the Pell Grant scheme makes it tough for me to advocate for
it.
It looks like
summer Pell Fraud will make a comeback:
Thanks to overall
falling enrollments (because people are figuring out college, especially
community college, is so often a ripoff now), there’s an actual surplus in Pell
Grant money. Imagine this: our Poo Bahs running higher education have done such
a terrible, horrible, job of it that not only can they not give away education,
they’re now having trouble even getting people to get an education along with a
free check! And despite this clear evidence of their failure, they still score 6
or 7 figure a year jobs…
Anyway, with the
surplus, there’s now more money for summer Pell Fraud. The higher ed world is
a’buzzing with the discussion of all the new loot that will be flowing, mostly,
into administrative pockets. I’ve found
several articles on it, but, as always, it’s the dog not barking that gets
my attention.
None of the
discussions on year round Pell discuss the freakin’ fraud. I know, for the
Federal government, it means nothing to throw away a billion a year (their
numbers, multiply by at least 8 to get a realistic lowball estimate)…but
shouldn’t we at least consider maybe making it just a little bit harder for
fake students to rake in the free money by going to fake schools?
It’s funny, major
“mainstream” news sites don’t allow comments on their articles…I distrust
everything I read there because if they’re printing lies, there’s no way
someone can make a correction in the comments section. Insider Higher Ed is
legitimate, and thus allows comments. I’m pleased to see I’m not the only one
noticing a lack of consideration for obvious
issues in the “free checks for signing up” business model of community college:
This seems
like a scheme designed to funnel money to non-profits. Note the lack of
interest in effectiveness.
Indeed, nobody
seems to care about the effectiveness of community colleges. 90% of
community college coursework is high school level or lower, much lower, and 90%
of the students taking such classes eventually leave campus with nothing at all
to show for their years of “education.” The immense
failure rate is one of many black secrets of higher education.
Why would there
be any interest in effectiveness? Ask any Poo Bah, and, if he were honest,
he’ll happily tell how the summer Pell Scam will be effective in getting him a
7 figure bonus for growing summer enrollment…
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