{
  "slug": "ghost-students-financial-aid",
  "title": "Bots are standing in the financial aid line",
  "summary": "Ghost students take the seat, the Pell Grant and the refund, then never attend. Document checks at application do not stop them. Here is the control that does.",
  "lede": "An instructor opens her roster in week two. Forty names, twelve of whom have never posted, never opened a file, never answered an email. She has done this every term for three years and she knows exactly what she is looking at. Nineteen real students are on the waitlist for a class that is officially full.",
  "date": "2026-09-07",
  "reading_time": "16 min read",
  "category": "Regulated",
  "tags": [
    "ghost students",
    "financial aid fraud",
    "Pell Grant",
    "community college",
    "enrollment fraud",
    "identity verification"
  ],
  "image": "https://cdn.twc.sh/images/igcache/Ghost%20Student%20Fraud/1200_630/blog.jpg",
  "url": "/blog/ghost-students-financial-aid.html",
  "wordcount": 4096,
  "related": [
    "payroll-diversion-direct-deposit",
    "identity-failure-map",
    "age-verification-without-id"
  ],
  "schema": "Article"
}