Minnesota colleges are dealing with a growing wave of enrollment fraud in which criminals use stolen identities to pose as real students, apply for classes and attempt to collect taxpayer-funded financial aid, and one community college says the problem has become so large that nearly one in three applications is now being flagged as potentially fraudulent.
KSTP 5 Eyewitness News investigative reporter Eric Rasmussen said Normandale Community College in Bloomington has processed roughly 29,000 applications that were considered fraudulent or suspicious since the problem began surging in 2023.
Dara Hagen, Normandale’s vice president of Student Affairs, told Rasmussen the share of questionable applications was once even higher.
“We were seeing probably 42% of our applications or so being fraudulent, and now we’re down to about 31%,” Hagen said.
That number is extraordinary for any college admissions system. Even if many of those applications are caught before money goes out the door, administrators are still spending time and resources separating real students from fake ones.
Stolen Identities Used To Chase Student Aid
Rasmussen described the fraud as a “ghost student” problem, where scammers steal real people’s personal information and use it to enroll online under their names.
The goal is often financial aid.
One victim, 32-year-old Chicago resident Jacob Rosenbacher, said somebody used his identity to enroll at Normandale and obtain a federal student loan of about $9,000.
“My credit dropped 168 points overnight,” Rosenbacher told KSTP.
He said he had never attended Normandale and had never even heard of the school before discovering the loan.
Rosenbacher believes the fraud should have been caught much earlier.
“And what Normandale, in my view, didn’t do is they didn’t check my identity against anything,” he said.
The basic problem is easy to understand. Online enrollment has made college more accessible, but the same convenience can also make it easier for criminals to impersonate someone without ever setting foot on campus.
A Fake Website Becomes His Warning
Rosenbacher, who described himself as a technology expert, decided to respond in an unusual way.
He bought internet domains that closely resembled Normandale’s real website and built a fake college site designed to show how easily people could be fooled.
Rasmussen reported that Rosenbacher created the site in roughly 10 hours.
“This is a warning to the public,” Rosenbacher said. “You have to be careful.”
His fictional school, called the Meridian Lakes State College System, even mocked what he saw as weak enrollment controls with the line, “No fee, no essay, no interview, and no you required.”
Rosenbacher said part of his goal was to show that very simple weaknesses can create serious cybersecurity problems.
He also pointed out another risk: if he could buy a domain that looked almost identical to the real college address, someone with bad intentions could potentially use it for convincing phishing emails.
“What if I emailed you from normandale.net and I said, ‘Hey, it’s your teacher’?” he asked.
That is a useful reminder that identity fraud does not always require highly sophisticated hacking. Sometimes the most effective scams work because something simply looks legitimate enough for a few seconds.
A 0.0 GPA Did Not Stop The Process
Rosenbacher also showed KSTP a warning message that had been sent to the person using his identity after the semester ended.
The student account showed a 0.0 GPA.
Even so, Normandale sent a standard message saying, “We believe you can do this, and we are here to help you succeed.”
Rosenbacher viewed that as an obvious red flag.
Hagen said the college cannot automatically assume every student with a 0.0 GPA is fraudulent because legitimate students sometimes stop attending, withdraw or fail courses.
“We do have students who end up stopping out that are real students,” she said.
That explanation makes sense, but it also shows how difficult these cases are to identify using academic behavior alone. A fake student may look exactly like a struggling real student until another piece of evidence finally exposes the fraud.
Minnesota Is Spending Millions To Fight Back
Rasmussen reported that Normandale and the broader Minnesota State system are adding more staff, technology and training to combat the problem.
Minnesota lawmakers have also approved $3 million in one-time funding to improve identity verification across the state college system.
Craig Munson, Minnesota State’s chief information security officer, said scammers keep changing their methods.
“We are in this constant improvement mode where, ‘how can we get better?’” Munson said.
The Minnesota State system, which includes Normandale and 32 other colleges and universities, flagged 2,696 fraudulent or potentially fraudulent financial-aid applications during the 2025-26 academic year.
That was a substantial decline from more than 7,700 suspicious applications during the previous school year.
Munson said the new system is intended to better confirm that the person filling out an enrollment application is actually the person whose identity appears on the form.
“We want to make sure that the information that’s on that student enrollment application matches who they say they are in real life,” he said.
Colleges Still Do Not Know How Many Got Through
Normandale says many suspicious applications are caught and discarded before financial aid is paid.
The harder question is how many fraudulent students slipped through before anyone noticed.
Rasmussen reported that administrators often do not know a real person’s identity has been stolen until that person comes forward.
Out of thousands of suspicious applications, Normandale said only about 40 people had filed formal appeals saying they were victims of identity theft.
That gap is unsettling because it suggests schools may be seeing only part of the damage.
In Rosenbacher’s case, a fraudulent account was apparently able to reach the point where federal aid was actually issued.
KSTP also reported that recovering stolen taxpayer money can be complicated, particularly because schools may sometimes be responsible for repaying federal aid to the government.
Human Review May Still Be Essential
Rosenbacher said he supports stronger automated identity checks but believes technology alone will not solve the problem.
“If you’re not putting a human in the loop who can use their judgment, then you’re not going to solve your problem,” he said.
That may be one of the most important points in the entire report.
Automated systems are good at spotting patterns and mismatches, but fraudsters adapt. A human reviewer may notice something strange that software misses, especially when a student’s identity, location, academic record and financial behavior do not line up.
Rosenbacher said he would willingly give the normandale.net domain to the college if officials wanted it.
“Part of the reason I bought the domain is, ‘Please don’t let anyone else do that,’” he said.
For Minnesota colleges, the larger challenge is now clear.
The system is no longer dealing with a few isolated fake applications. It is fighting organized identity fraud on a scale large enough that tens of thousands of submissions have required extra scrutiny.
And when nearly a third of applications at one major community college are being flagged, the problem is not simply annoying administrative noise.
It is a direct threat to real students, stolen identities and millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded aid.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
