What Are Ghost Students? Financial Aid Fraud Explained

Across the country, colleges are discovering that their enrollment rolls are full of students who don’t actually exist. They’re called “ghost students”—fabricated or stolen identities used by scammers to enroll in college courses, trigger federal financial aid disbursements, and then vanish with the money.

The fraud has grown so large that the U.S. Department of Education says it prevented more than $1 billion in attempted student aid theft in 2025 alone. And the problem is getting worse.