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CALMATTERS

April 8, 2025, 8:58AM

8 minute read

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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 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.

Another East Coast bagel shop is gearing up to make its Los Angeles debut. On the tail of the arrival of legendary New York bagel shop H&H, rip-and-dip bagel specialist PopUp Bagels is headed west with multiple planned locations in LA, as well as in San Diego and Orange County. PopUp is best known for its fresh-out-of-the-oven bagels served with a small tub of whipped cream cheese for dipping.

Founder Adam Goldberg began PopUp Bagels as a home project during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 before opening the first standalone location in New York in 2021. In April 2023, PopUp bagels debuted in Greenwich Village and quickly gained a cult following, garnering out-the-door lines from open until close. Since then, the bagel shop has expanded to multiple locations in New York, Connecticut, and Boston.

PopUp stands in contrast to other New York City bagel shops for its rip-and-dip bagel serving style and refusal to offer bagel sandwiches. Instead, customers are encouraged to pick up the still-hot bagels in sets of three, six, or a dozen, and dunk them into the provided spreads, including original cream cheese, butter, scallion cream cheese, and vegan cream cheese. A set of three, which comes with one spread, currently costs $13. For the West Coast expansion, PopUp has partnered with James Marzouk of Sweetzer Capital, as well as with Paul Goodman and Griffin Thall, the duo behind Bagel Boyz. Marzouk will lead the charge in opening an astounding 25 locations across Los Angeles and Orange County, according to a statement from PopUp Bagels, while Goodman and Thall will open 10 locations in San Diego over the next few years.

When PopUp opens, it will join homegrown Los Angeles bagel shops like Maury’s, Belle’s Delicatessen, Courage Bagels, and Hank’s Bagels, along with transplant shops, including the recently-arrived Boichik Bagels from the Bay Area. While Los Angeles hasn’t quite hit its own rip-and-dip golden age yet, there are already a few shops in the area offering the unique bagel style, including Calic Bagel in Koreatown and breakfast burrito specialist Wake & Late.

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World Central Kitchen is serving free hot meals at key hub locations, offering potable water stations, and supporting biweekly farmers markets across Southern California. These are available to anyone who needs them.

Below are the updated locations and hours.

East LA Sites

Gordy’s Garage Parking LotWednesday, Friday, Sunday4:00 PM - 8:00 PM843 W Woodbury Rd.Altadena

Iglesia Del NazarenoMonday - Friday4:00 PM - 7:00 PM3541 Brandon St.Pasadena

West LA Sites

Post Office Exposition BlvdMonday - Saturday 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM11270 Exposition Blvd Fl 1Los Angeles

American Legion Palisades Post 283Monday - Saturday11:30 AM - 3:00 PM15247 La Cruz Dr. Pacific Palisades

Water Distribution Sites

Gordy's GarageWednesday and Friday4:00PM - 8:00 PM843 W Woodbury Rd. Altadena

World Central Kitchen Farmers Markets

Gordy's GarageWednesdays from 4:00 PM- 8:00 PMFridays from 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM843 W Woodbury Rd. Altadena

Sierra Madre LibraryWednesdays 4:00 PM- 8:00 PMFridays 11:00 AM - 3:00PM350 W Sierra Madre Blvd.Sierra Madre

Boys & Girls Club at Third SpaceWednesdays from 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM23357 Pacific Coast Hwy.Malibu

Renew LA Church Santa MonicaThursdays 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM1302 14th St.Santa Monica

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WCK relief team expands efforts in Southern California

The Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service confirmed a tornado moved through the Pico Rivera area east of downtown early Thursday, as a powerful storm system battered Southern California with heavy rain and damaging winds. The office classified it as a zero, the lowest level on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which runs up to five.

Although tornadoes are unusual for the region, they are not unheard of, especially this time of year.

“The L.A. basin area tends to be a magnet for tornadoes for this time of year,” said Ryan Kittell, a meteorologist with the NWS Los Angeles office. “I’d say March is a favorable month for them in this area.”

Before Thursday, the most recent tornado reported near downtown Los Angeles was in March 2023, when a strong twister tore through Montebello, about eight miles east of downtown Los Angeles, damaging warehouses and nearby buildings. In March 1983, two tornadoes, one in downtown Los Angeles and one in Pasadena, caused widespread damage and numerous injuries as part of a storm system that left at least nine dead across the West Coast.

The tornado on Thursday coincided with a storm system slamming into Southern California late Wednesday and early Thursday, unleashing bouts of heavy rain, gusty winds and prompting widespread weather alerts.

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An 8.5-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway was shut down between Malibu and the Palisades due to the risk of debris flows. High winds buffeted traffic and waterways swelled with storm water. High surf advisories were issued as waves up to 13 feet crashed into beaches from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo Counties. Firefighters in the East Los Angeles community of Boyle Heights used a ladder to pull a man out of the surging Los Angeles River shortly before 4 a.m.

Evacuation warnings were issued to neighborhoods near the ruins of the January fires in Pacific Palisades, Sylmar, Hollywood, Mandeville Canyon, Malibu and Altadena, advising them to prepare to leave in advance of impending danger. In the San Gabriel Valley, authorities took a firmer stand in northern Sierra Madre, a foothill city with a population of about 11,000 near the Eaton fire burn scar, ordering residents on Wednesday to leave.

Rainfall totals reached an inch and a half in lower-elevation areas of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties on Thursday morning, and up to three inches was recorded in foothill and mountain slopes. Strong winds accompanied the storm, with gusts over 70 miles per hour reported in some locations, toppling trees that damaged vehicles.

The Weather Service also issued multiple flash flood warnings throughout the night and into Thursday morning, urging residents in vulnerable areas, including Malibu, Oxnard, Simi Valley and Pasadena, to move to higher ground immediately.

By Thursday morning, the heaviest rains had shifted out of Los Angeles County and into Orange County, though showers and isolated thunderstorms were expected to linger through Thursday afternoon. Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist at the Los Angeles office of the Weather Service, warned that the risk of flash flooding and debris flows would persist.

“The thunderstorms could produce flash flooding impacts, gusty winds and small hail,” Ms. Schoenfeld said. “But overall, the main part of the storm has exited L.A. County.”

Thousands of people in Los Angeles County were driven from their homes by wildfires two months ago. This week’s storm system was the second in a month to set off a cascade of intense preparation as traumatized fire survivors and state and local authorities rushed to prevent the fire-stripped soil from turning into a slurry of muck and debris and sliding out from under remaining homes, roads and buildings. A similar storm in mid-February generated several minor debris flows and at least a dozen close calls, including that of a Los Angeles fire inspector whose vehicle was swept off the road and into the Pacific Ocean by a mudslide near Malibu.

County, urban search and rescue teams and swiftwater rescue teams worked to support 12 flood related incidents. One incident included a LAFD member who was swept off the road and into the ocean near Malibu., but the proactive response prevented significant damage or injuries.

By the weekend, forecasters predict dry and warmer conditions returning to the region.

Shawn Hubler and Orlando Mayorquín contributed reporting.