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Tag: dept of education

  • Trump admin drops hammer on ‘ghost students,’ claws back $1B from alleged loan scammers

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    FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Education thwarted more than $1 billion in student aid fraud under President Donald Trump’s first year in office, including stopping suspected bots and “ghost students” from obtaining taxpayer-funded loans, Fox News Digital learned. 

    Officials say the savings come from new “enhanced fraud controls” the department implemented in June to combat fraudsters from working to obtain financial assistance loans from colleges. 

    College officials and cybersecurity experts in recent years have pointed to a new scam trend of “ghost students,” which are fabricated or stolen identities created solely to enroll, trigger financial aid disbursements and then disappear. Ghost students are believed to be powered by AI bots or run by criminal networks using real Americans’ personal information. 

    Other scams have included the use of deceased individuals’ identities in order to fraudulently obtain loans. 

    FAKE YALE STUDENT SCANDAL RAISES ALARMS OVER ACADEMIC FRAUD, FOREIGN INFLUENCE RISKS

    To crackdown on fraud, the Department of Education heightened its identification verification process for first-time applicants attempting to receive Federal Student Aid. The department said in June that the Biden administration “removed verification safeguards and diverted resources from fraud prevention toward its illegal loan forgiveness efforts” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which compounded fraud schemes. 

    The Department of Education reported that it has thwarted more than $1 billion from alleged scammers leveraging student loans.  (Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

    “American citizens have to present an ID to purchase a ticket to travel or to rent a car — it’s only right that they should present an ID to access tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to fund their education,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told Fox Digital on Thursday. 

    “From day one, the Trump Administration has been committed to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government. As a result, $1 billion in taxpayer funds will now support students pursuing the American dream, rather than falling into the hands of criminals. Merry Christmas, taxpayers!” she added. 

    The new verification process requires first-time applicants to “present, either in person or on a live video conference, an unexpired, valid, government-issued photo identification to an institutionally authorized individual and the institution must preserve a copy of this documentation.”

    The verification measure has thwarted more than $1 billion from flowing to suspected fraudsters, which the Department of Education said includes “coordinated international fraud rings and AI bots pretending to be students.”

    The increased verification process followed the Trump administration uncovering nearly $90 million that was disbursed to suspected scammers in 2024, including $30 million in loans to dead people and more than $40 million disbursed to companies using bots disguised as fake students.

    SCHOOLS TURN TO HANDWRITTEN EXAMS AS AI CHEATING SURGES

    Recent data from the California Community College System, for example, indicated that 34% of community college applications in 2024, resulting in millions of dollars in federal and state aid being misdirected. 

    Local media reported in the spring of this year that Democrats and Republicans alike were working to address loan fraud in the state and heighten security measures, including a Democratic assembly member calling for a state audit to identify fraud patterns. 

    A man typing on computer

    “Ghost student” AI scams have infiltrated the college loan application process, according to Department of Education officials.  (Stock/Getty Images)

    The Foothill–De Anza Community College District received roughly 26,000 applications, according to media reports in 2024, with 10,000 placed on hold for possible fraud before the beginning of the term. In Nevada, the College of Southern Nevada wrote off $7.4 million in the fall 2024 semester due to a “ghost student” scheme, media reports show. 

    Another “ghost students” scheme in Minnesota has left Riverland Community College averaging more than 100 potentially fraudulent applications per year. 

    TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO ROLL OUT EARLIEST AND MOST STREAMLINED FAFSA FORM IN HISTORY

    Within the first week of the new verification process in June, officials say they flagged almost 150,000 suspect identities in current Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) filings and “immediately alerted” colleges and universities to the suspicious activity.

    Donald Trump answers questions in Oval Office

    President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House Oct. 6, 2025, in Washington, D.C.   (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

    “Colleges and universities across the country reported being under siege by highly sophisticated fraud rings and requested the Trump Administration for help,” the Department of Education said in a press release on Thursday. 

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    In addition to rolling out its heightened security measures, the department has also published materials online warning families against “fake college websites to trick students with AI-generated content and false promises designed to seem real” and is in the midst of hiring a “new fraud detection team within FSA that will be responsible for combatting fraud and abuse.”

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  • Power stripped from Education Department in latest Trump administration move to dismantle it

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    The Trump administration announced Tuesday that the Department of Education signed a series of interagency agreements to shift power from a handful of its offices and programs to other federal agencies as it works to dismantle the federal department for good. 

    “The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a Tuesday press release. “Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission. As we partner with these agencies to improve federal programs, we will continue to gather best practices in each state through our 50-state tour, empower local leaders in K-12 education, restore excellence to higher education, and work with Congress to codify these reforms.”

    The Department of Education announced six interagency agreements (IAAs) Tuesday with the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department and the Department of the Interior to co-manage or take a growing role in managing certain offices and programs, according to a background call with the media. 

    “We at the Department of Ed have engaged with other partner agencies over 200 times through IAAS to procure various services of other partner agencies over the years. Even the Biden administration did it to help implement the First Step Act, entering into an IAA with the Department of Justice. And so this is a tool that’s frequently used,” a senior Education Department official said Tuesday during a call with the media. 

    THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN EXPOSED THE BIGGEST LIE IN EDUCATION

    Secretary of Education Linda McMahon  ( Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images)

    One agreement includes the Department of Labor establishing an elementary and secondary education partnership to “empower parents and states, promote innovation, and deliver program improvements,” according to press release on the announcement. 

    The Department of Labor also will take a “growing role in managing” the Education Department’s higher education grant programs and institution-based grant program, according to the press call. 

    Additionally, the Department of the Interior will take a “growing role” in administering the Indian Education program, according to the call. The Department of Education also signed a pair of Health and Human Services agreements related to the Department of Education’s foreign medical accreditation programs and establishing a new program called Child Care Access Means Parents in School to promote on-campus child care for parents enrolled in college. 

    The announcement also included establishing a new program with the State Department to oversee international education and foreign language studies programs.

    “These partnerships really mark a major step forward in improving management of select programs and leveraging these partner agencies’ administrative expertise, their experience working with relevant stakeholders and streamline the bureaucracy that has accumulated here at Ed over the decades,” a senior department official said during the call. “We are confident that this will lead to better services for grantees, for schools, for families across the country as a result of these partnerships.”

    The announcement follows Trump’s pledge to dismantle the agency altogether, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital Tuesday. 

    “President Trump promised the American people he would dismantle the Department of Education. Today, Secretary McMahon is delivering on that promise with bold, decisive action to return education where it belongs — at the state and local level,” Huston said. “The Trump Administration is fully committed to doing what’s best for American students, which is why it’s critical to shrink this bloated federal education bureaucracy while still ensuring efficient delivery of funds and essential programs. The Democrat shutdown made one thing unmistakably clear: students and teachers don’t need Washington bureaucrats micromanaging their classrooms.”

    Education Department

    The U.S. Department of Education headquarters building in Washington, D.C.  (J. David Ake/Getty Images)

    President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March calling on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” 

    The Department of Education was established in 1979 and requires Congressional action to officially shutter, but has not taken meaningful steps on Trump’s order to eliminate the federal department. McMahon also has previously acknowledged that Congress is needed in order to officially shutter the Education Department, with the administration instead working to dismantle it by allocating its authority to other federal agencies. 

    Shuttering the Department of Education was among Trump’s lengthy list of campaign platforms, with the then-2024 presidential candidate touting that he would end the federal bureaucracy at the agency by punting its responsibilities to the states, subsequently elevating the control local communities and parents have over schooling. 

    SECRETARY OF EDUCATION POINTS OUT THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN SHOWS HER DEPARTMENT IS UNNEEDED

    President Donald Trump holds an executive order relating to education in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, in Washington, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Education Secretary Linda McMahon watch. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    President Donald Trump holds an executive order relating to education in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, in Washington. (AP NEWSROOM)

    “The Department of Education has entrenched the education bureaucracy and sought to convince America that Federal control over education is beneficial,” Trump’s executive order said in March. “While the Department of Education does not educate anyone, it maintains a public relations office that includes over 80 staffers at a cost of more than $10 million per year.” 

    The federal government just emerged from the longest shutdown in U.S. history, at 43 days, with McMahon authoring an op-ed claiming the shutdown exposed how “little the Department of Education will be missed.”

    President Trump reopens the government

    President Donald Trump signs the funding bill to reopen the government, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington.  (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

    TRUMP DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ROLLS OUT LATEST STEP TO EXPAND SCHOOL CHOICE NATIONWIDE

    “Our nation just experienced the longest government shutdown in its history,” McMahon wrote in the USA Today piece published Sunday. “The 43-day shutdown, which came smack in the middle of the fall semester, showed every family how unnecessary the federal education bureaucracy is to their children’s education. Students kept going to class. Teachers continued to get paid. There were no disruptions in sports seasons or bus routes.” 

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    “The shutdown proved an argument that conservatives have been making for 45 years: The U.S. Department of Education is mostly a pass-through for funds that are best managed by the states,” she continued. 

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  • Denver school’s all-gender bathrooms violate Title IX, Education Department finds

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    The U.S. Department of Education said on Thursday that it found Denver Public Schools violated Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education, by establishing all-gender bathrooms and allowing students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity rather than their biological sex.

    The department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation in January, shortly after President Donald Trump returned to the White House, into Denver’s East High School after the school district converted a girl’s bathroom into an all-gender restroom while leaving another bathroom on the same floor just for boys. 

    The district has said the change was made after a student-led process and that the bathroom had 12-foot-tall partitions around the toilets for privacy and security.

    TRUMP ADMINISTRATION THREATENS TO PULL FEDERAL FUNDS FROM VIRGINIA SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN GENDER POLICY DISPUTE

    The U.S. Department of Education said it found Denver Public Schools violated Title IX. (AP)

    A second all-gender restroom was later on the same floor, which the district said was done to address concerns of unfairness. The district said at the time that students would also continue to have access to gender-specific bathrooms and single-stall, all-gender restrooms.

    The federal government said it sent the district a proposed resolution that includes four conditions to which it must agree within the next 10 days to resolve the matter and avoid facing the risk of “imminent enforcement action.”

    “Denver Public Schools violated Title IX and its implementing regulations by converting a sex-segregated restroom designated for girls in East High School to an ‘all-gender’ facility and by allowing students to use the high school’s intimate facilities on the basis of their ‘gender identity’ rather than their biological sex,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of the department’s Office for Civil Rights, said in a statement.

    GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY VIOLATED TITLE VI WITH ‘UNLAWFUL DEI POLICIES,’ EDUCATION DEPARTMENT SAYS

    East High School's clocktower

    The district has said the all-gender bathrooms were created after a student-led process. (AP)

    “As a result, the District is creating a hostile environment for its students by endangering their safety, privacy, and dignity while denying them access to equal educational activities and opportunities,” he continued. “Denver is free to endorse a self-defeating gender ideology, but it is not free to accept federal taxpayer funds and harm its students in violation of Title IX. The Trump Administration will work relentlessly to hold accountable school districts that harbor the ideological fanatics and policies that sully students’ educational experience with sex discrimination.”

    The proposed resolution would require the district to redesignate all-gender bathrooms back to sex-designated multi-stall restrooms, scrap any policies or guidance allowing students to access bathrooms based on gender identity rather than biological sex and adopt “biology-based definitions” for the words “male” and “female” in all policies and practices related to Title IX.

    The district must also issue a memorandum to its schools affirming that they must provide access to bathrooms that “protect the privacy, dignity and safety of students and are comparably accessible to each sex.” It is also required to state that Title IX compliance ensures girls may not be discriminated against in any education program or activity.

    Fox News Digital reached out to Denver Public Schools for comment.

    Education Department

    The federal government said it had sent the district a proposed resolution to which it must agree within the next 10 days to resolve the matter. (J. David Ake/Getty Images)

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    Under the Trump administration, federal officials have sought to target school districts for policies allowing students to use bathrooms or participate on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity.

    The president signed an executive order in February to block transgender girls from participating on sports teams that do not match their biological sex.

    Earlier this week, House Republicans introduced legislation to prohibit transgender girls from bathrooms or sports teams or restrooms that align with their gender identity and not their biological sex.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • George Mason University violated Tile VI with ‘unlawful DEI policies,’ Education Department says

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    Oklahoma bans tax-funded DEI programs in colleges

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt join ‘The Faulkner Focus’ to discuss the ‘Returning Education to the States’ tour and Oklahoma’s new initiative banning tax-funded D.E.I. college programs.

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    George Mason University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by illegally using diversity, equity and inclusion practices, the Department of Education announced Friday.

    The department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the institution’s hiring and promotion practices last month following a complaint filed by several of its professors who claimed preferential treatment was given to prospective and current faculty members from “underrepresented groups” to advance “anti-racism.”

    The complaint accused George Mason President Gregory Washington of issuing guidance that prioritized diversity initiatives over qualifications.

    “In 2020, University President Gregory Washington called for expunging the so-called ‘racist vestiges’ from GMU’s campus,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education Craig Trainor said in a statement. “Without a hint of self awareness, President Washington then waged a university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race. You can’t make this up.”

    TRUMP-APPOINTED JUDGE STRIKES DOWN ANTI-DEI MEASURES FROM EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

    The Department of Education said George Mason University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. (Getty Images)

    “Despite this unfortunate chapter in Mason’s history, the University now has the opportunity to come into compliance with federal civil rights laws by entering into a Resolution Agreement with the Office for Civil Rights,” he continued. “In the last seven months, this much is clear: The Trump-McMahon Department of Education will not allow racially exclusionary practices—which violate the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Protection Clause, and Supreme Court precedent—to continue corrupting our nation’s educational institutions.”

    The Office for Civil Rights proposed a possible resolution to the university’s president that includes six conditions to which the institution must agree. The university must agree to the conditions within the next 10 days to resolve the matter.

    The proposed resolution would require the university to send a statement to students and faculty committing to comply with Title VI in its recruitment, hiring, promotion and tenure decisions, and the statement should include a personal apology from the university’s president for “promoting unlawful discriminatory practices.”

    GMU BOARD AGREES TO CUT DEI PROGRAMS WHILE UNANIMOUSLY APPROVING RAISE FOR EMBATTLED PRESIDENT

    GMU President Gregory Washington

    George Mason President Gregory Washington was accused of issuing guidance that prioritized diversity initiatives over qualifications. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

    The statement must also be displayed prominently on the university’s website and any contrary statements would have to be removed, according to the proposed resolution.

    The university would need to agree to revise any policies and documents used in its recruitment, hiring, promotion and tenure process and must remove any provisions that require or encourage the use of race as a factor in these practices.

    The federal government also said George Mason must conduct annual training for anyone involved in these practices to affirm that it would not give preferences based on race.

    Additionally, the institution must make records demonstrating compliance with the agreement available to the government upon request.

    Education Department

    The Office for Civil Rights proposed a possible resolution to the university’s president that includes six conditions to which the institution must agree. (J. David Ake/Getty Images)

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    George Mason’s failure to agree to the proposed resolution could lead to a loss in federal funds.

    The Trump administration has already pulled funding from several universities, including Harvard, Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles, over discrimination accusations and their handling of alleged antisemitism on campus.

    Fox News Digital reached out to George Mason for comment.

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