HEI 2025: Over 1.4 Million Annual Page Views From Readers Across the Globe

Over 1.4 million page views from readers across the globe in 2025 reveal a simple but terrifying truth: the promise of a college degree is collapsing before our eyes. Cyber breaches, student debt spirals, for-profit exploitation, and failing oversight have combined to create a system that enriches the few while leaving millions exposed to financial, social, and personal risk. From elite endowments hoarding wealth to underfunded community colleges struggling to survive, higher education is no longer a ladder to opportunity—it is a battleground where power, profit, and policy collide. HEI’s reporting this year has lifted the veil on the forces reshaping American education, revealing a crisis that is urgent, systemic, and global.

Our most-read investigations laid bare a stark reality: a college degree no longer guarantees financial security. Graduates carry crushing debt even as wages stagnate and job markets tighten. Families struggle under the weight of rising costs, while communities confront the fallout of institutions that promise prosperity but deliver instability. The working-class recession is real, and higher education has become both a reflection and a driver of it.

Institutions themselves are showing alarming fragility. The University of Phoenix cyber breach highlighted how even the largest for-profit entities can collapse under operational mismanagement and inadequate oversight. Schools flagged for Heightened Cash Monitoring by the Department of Education illustrate a wider pattern of financial and administrative vulnerability. When governance fails, students suffer, public dollars are jeopardized, and trust in the system erodes.

Profit imperatives have reshaped the very mission of higher education. Fraudulent FAFSA claims, opaque financial practices, and political donations from for-profit entities reveal a sector increasingly beholden to investors and corporate interests. In this bifurcated system, elite universities consolidate wealth while underfunded community colleges, HBCUs, and MSIs struggle to survive. The promise of equal opportunity is under assault, replaced by a marketplace that privileges profit over learning.

HEI has also cast a global lens on these inequities. From Latin America to U.S. territories, higher education is entangled with political power, economic extraction, and social stratification. Internationally, the same forces of exploitation and inequity shape students’ futures, underscoring that the crisis is not merely domestic but systemic and global.

Yet HEI’s work does not end with diagnosis. Solutions are emerging. Federal oversight and transparency must increase, debt relief is imperative, cybersecurity and governance reforms are urgent, and reinvestment in historically underfunded institutions is critical. These measures are necessary to restore integrity and public trust in a system that has long promised more than it delivers.

As we enter 2026, HEI remains committed to relentless investigation and fearless reporting. We will continue to expose failures, hold power accountable, and illuminate both the inequities and the opportunities within higher education. Our 1.4 million page views from readers across the globe in 2025 reflect the urgent need for this work. Higher education is at a crossroads. Informed scrutiny, persistent inquiry, and uncompromising reporting are the only way forward. Hope is limited but not lost. With scrutiny, advocacy, and decisive action, higher education can reclaim its promise as a public good rather than a profit-driven system that leaves millions behind.

Sources and References

Higher Education Inquirer, various articles, 2025. U.S. Department of Education Heightened Cash Monitoring lists, 2025. University of Phoenix cyber breach reports, 2025. Investigations into FAFSA fraud and for-profit college practices, HEI 2025. Global higher education inequality studies, 2025.

PXED Throws US Department of Education Under the Bus Regarding Enrollment Fraud

[Editor's note: The Higher Education Inquirer has requested all Department of Education correspondence related to "unusual" or "suspicious" enrollment regarding the University of Phoenix.]   

Phoenix Education Partners (PXED), parent company of the University of Phoenix, used its latest earnings call to advance a familiar narrative: when things go wrong, blame the U.S. Department of Education. This time, CEO Chris Lynne positioned ED as the primary culprit behind the suspicious-enrollment surge that distorted PXED’s numbers over the past year.

The exchange began when Goldman Sachs analyst George Tong asked the question PXED tried to sidestep throughout its IPO process: How much of PXED’s slowing FY2026 enrollment growth is due to fraud controls, and how much of it is due to friction created for legitimate students? And, crucially, what prevents these distortions from resurfacing in the next cycle?

Lynne offered no numbers. Instead, he pivoted to a sweeping explanation of PXED’s “advanced algorithms” and internal control systems—systems so forceful that they immediately block applicants once certain thresholds are hit, even when PXED cannot determine whether they’ve flagged a real student or a bad actor.

But once the CEO finished describing these internal measures, he returned to the real point he wanted to deliver to Wall Street: this is the Department of Education’s fault, not PXED’s.

According to Lynne, the “root” cause was a breakdown in ED’s identity-verification controls tied to the troubled rollout of the new FAFSA. The Department “publicly acknowledged” the failure, Lynne said, and PXED executives met with ED in September to confirm that the government finally has “a good handle on this.” In Lynne’s telling, PXED is the responsible party cleaning up a federal mess.

What this framing ignores is everything that came before. PXED and its predecessor, the University of Phoenix, have long histories of enrollment-integrity problems that predate the FAFSA meltdown by more than a decade. When Lynne says his algorithms “cleaned up” the funnel after being moved to the top of the application process, what he really means is that PXED used its own filters—its own black-box controls—to decide which students were worth staff time and which were not.

And PXED quietly admitted the cost. The verification loops and algorithmic filters caught many real students, blocking or delaying their enrollment and layering additional obstacles onto people who already face the steepest barriers in higher education. Lynne dismissed this as mere “friction”—a small price to pay for cleaner numbers.

But the larger problem is structural. For-profit systems built on volume rely on conversions, throughput, and funnel efficiency. When that model is threatened, the instinct is not to repair student-facing systems—it's to blame the government, tighten internal controls, and preserve the revenue pipeline. PXED’s decision to throw ED under the bus fits that pattern exactly.

The real story isn’t that the Department of Education made serious mistakes in rolling out the new FAFSA—mistakes it has acknowledged. The real story is how quickly companies like PXED use those failures as a shield, deflecting accountability for their own long-standing recruitment practices and quietly punishing the very students they claim to serve.

Phoenix Education Partners, FAFSA Fraud, and the Familiar Dance of Blame

When Phoenix Education Partners (PXED) CEO Chris Lynne publicly blamed the U.S. Department of Education for missing fraud in FAFSA applications—fraud that allowed the University of Phoenix to enroll individuals engaged in financial-aid misconduct—he likely hoped to redirect scrutiny away from his own shop. Instead, the maneuver sent up a flare. For many observers of the for-profit college sector, it felt like the return of a well-worn tactic: deflect, distract, and deny responsibility until the heat dies down.

The pivot toward blaming the Department of Education does not merely look defensive; it echoes a pattern that helped bring down an entire generation of predatory schools. And it raises a simple question: why is PXED responding like institutions that have something to hide?


The Old Script, Updated

The University of Phoenix, under PXED’s ownership, carries not just a long memory of investigations and settlements but a structural DNA shaped by years of aggressive enrollment management, marketing overreach, and high-pressure tactics. When the industry was confronted with evidence of systemic abuses—lying about job placement, enrolling ineligible students, manipulating financial-aid rules—the typical industry defense was to claim that problems were caused by bad actors, by misinterpreted regulations, or by a sluggish and incompetent Department of Education.

Those excuses were not convincing then, and they ring even more hollow now.

If individuals involved in financial-aid fraud managed to slip into the system, an institution with PXED’s history should be the first to strengthen internal controls, not pass the buck. Schools are required under federal law to verify eligibility, prevent fraud, and monitor suspicious patterns. Pretending that ED is solely responsible ignores the compliance structure PXED is obligated—by statute—to maintain.

Why Blame-Shifting Looks So Suspicious

Instead of demonstrating transparency or releasing information about internal controls that failed, PXED’s leadership has opted for a public relations gambit: blame the regulator. This raises several concerns.

First, shifting responsibility before releasing evidence suggests that PXED may be more focused on reputational management than on institutional accountability. If the organization’s processes were sound, those facts would speak louder—and more credibly—than an accusatory press statement.

Second, the posture is déjà vu for people who have tracked the sector for decades. Corinthian Colleges, ITT Tech, Education Management Corp., and Career Education Corporation all blamed ED at various stages of their collapses. In each case, deflection became part of the pattern that preceded deeper revelations of systemic abuse.

When PXED’s CEO adopts similar rhetoric, observers reasonably wonder whether history is repeating itself—again.

Finally, PXED’s argument undermines trust at a moment when the University of Phoenix is already under skepticism from accreditors, policymakers, student-borrower advocates, and the public. Instead of strengthening compliance, PXED’s messaging signals defensiveness. Institutions with nothing to hide usually take a different approach.

The Structural Issues PXED Doesn’t Want to Discuss

PXED acquired the University of Phoenix with promises of modernization, stabilization, and responsible stewardship. But beneath the marketing, core challenges remain:

A business model dependent on federal aid. The more a school relies on federal dollars, the stronger its responsibility to prevent fraud—not the weaker.

A compliance culture shaped by profit pressure. For-profit education has repeatedly shown how financial incentives can distort admissions and oversight.

A credibility deficit. PXED took over an institution known internationally for deceptive advertising and financial-aid abuses. Blaming ED only magnifies the perception that nothing has fundamentally changed.

A fragile regulatory environment. With oversight tightening and student-protection rules returning, PXED cannot afford to gesture toward the old for-profit playbook. Doing so suggests they are trying to manage optics instead of outcomes.

What Accountability Would Look Like

If PXED wanted to demonstrate leadership rather than defensiveness, a different response was available:

• Conduct and publish a full internal review of financial-aid intake processes
• Outline steps to prevent enrollment of fraudulent actors
• Acknowledge institutional lapses—and explain how they occurred
• Invite independent audits rather than blaming federal partners
• Demonstrate an understanding of fiduciary obligations to students and taxpayers

This is the standard expected of Title IV institutions. It is also the standard PXED insists they meet.

A Familiar Pattern at a Familiar Institution

Every moment of pressure reveals something about institutional culture. PXED’s choice to immediately fault the Department of Education—without presenting evidence of its own vigilance—suggests that the company may still be operating according to the old Phoenix playbook: when in doubt, blame someone else.

But in 2025, the public, regulators, and students have seen this movie before. And they know how it ends.

Sources
U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Handbook
Senate HELP Committee, For-Profit Higher Education: The Failure to Safeguard the Federal Investment and Ensure Student Success
Federal Trade Commission, University of Phoenix Settlement Documents
U.S. Department of Education, Program Review and Compliance Requirements
Higher Education Inquirer archives

The Rise of Ghost Students: AI-Fueled Fraud in Higher Education

Colleges across the United States are facing an alarming increase in "ghost students"—fraudulent applicants who infiltrate online enrollment systems, collect financial aid, and vanish before delivering any academic engagement. The problem, fueled by advances in artificial intelligence and weaknesses in identity verification processes, is undermining trust, misdirecting resources, and placing real students at risk.

What Is a Ghost Student?

A ghost student is not simply someone who drops out. These are fully fabricated identities—sometimes based on stolen personal information, sometimes entirely synthetic—created to fraudulently enroll in colleges. Fraudsters use AI tools to generate admissions essays, forge transcripts, and even produce deepfake images and videos for identity verification.

Once enrolled, ghost students typically sign up for online courses, complete minimal coursework to stay active long enough to qualify for financial aid, and then disappear once funds are disbursed.

Scope and Impact

The scale of the problem is significant and growing:

• California community colleges flagged approximately 460,000 suspicious applications in a single year—nearly 20% of the total—resulting in more than $11 million in fraudulent aid disbursements.

• The College of Southern Nevada reported losing $7.4 million to ghost student fraud in one semester.

• At Century College in Minnesota, instructors discovered that roughly 15% of students in a single course were fake enrollees.

• California's overall community college system reported over $13 million in financial aid losses in a single year due to such schemes—a 74% increase from the previous year.

The consequences extend beyond financial loss. Course seats are blocked from legitimate students. Faculty spend hours identifying and reporting ghost students. Institutional data becomes unreliable. Most importantly, public trust in higher education systems is eroded.

Why Now?

Several developments have enabled this rise in fraud:

1. The shift to online learning during the pandemic decreased opportunities for in-person identity verification.

2. AI tools—such as large language models, AI voice generators, and synthetic video platforms—allow fraudsters to create highly convincing fake identities at scale.

3. Open-access policies at many institutions, particularly community colleges, allow applications to be submitted with minimal verification.

4. Budget cuts and staff shortages have left many colleges without the resources to identify and remove fake students in a timely manner.

How Institutions Are Responding

Colleges and universities are implementing multiple strategies to fight back:

Identity Verification Tools
Some institutions now require government-issued IDs matched with biometric verification—such as real-time selfies with liveness detection—to confirm applicants' identities.

Faculty-Led Screening
Instructors are being encouraged to require early student engagement via Zoom, video introductions, or synchronous activities to confirm that enrolled students are real individuals.

Policy and Federal Support
The U.S. Department of Education will soon require live ID verification for flagged FAFSA applicants. Some states, such as California, are considering application fees or more robust identity checks at the enrollment stage.

AI-Driven Pattern Detection
Tools like LightLeap.AI and ID.me are helping institutions track unusual behaviors such as duplicate IP addresses, linguistic patterns, and inconsistent documentation to detect fraud attempts.

Recommendations for HEIs

To mitigate the risk of ghost student infiltration, higher education institutions should:

• Implement digital identity verification systems before enrollment or aid disbursement.

• Train faculty and staff to recognize and report suspicious activity early in the semester.

• Deploy AI tools to detect patterns in application and login data.

• Foster collaboration across institutions to share data on emerging fraud trends.

• Communicate transparently with students about new verification procedures and the reasons behind them.

Why It Matters

Ghost student fraud is more than a financial threat—it is a systemic risk to educational access, operational efficiency, and institutional credibility. With AI-enabled fraud growing in sophistication, higher education must act decisively to safeguard the integrity of enrollment, instruction, and student support systems.

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Sources

• CrossHackers: https://www.crosshackers.com/fake-enrollments

• SF Chronicle: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/community-college-financial-aid-fraud-20325192.php

• SFGate: https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/ghost-students-creating-problem-calif-colleges-20311708.php

• Eye on Yavapai College: https://www.eyeonyavapaicollege.com/administration/fraudsters-attacking-colleges-using-ghost-online-enrollment-schemes

• Star Tribune: https://www.startribune.com/ghost-students-the-new-enrollment-fraud-scheme-minnesota-two-year-colleges-are-fighting/601329524

• Campus Reform: https://www.campusreform.org/article/ghost-students-invading-campuses-scamming-millions-of-dollars-away-and-blocking-out-real-undergrads/28295

• University Business: https://universitybusiness.com/what-can-institutions-do-about-the-rise-of-ghost-students

• JD Supra: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/steps-colleges-should-take-to-bust-3949980

• Get VerifiNow: https://www.getverifinow.com/the-ghost-student-problem

• Intellicheck: https://www.intellicheck.com/resource-library/the-rise-in-ghost-students-how-fraudsters-use-fake-identities

U.S. Department of Education Announces Official Release of 2025–26 FAFSA Form

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) today officially released the 2025–26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®), 10 days before its Dec. 1 goal. The online FAFSA form is available to all students and families at fafsa.gov, and the Department is processing submissions and sending them to schools. The paper form is also now available for students to submit.

Over the last several months, the Department has incorporated feedback from students, parents, schools, community-based organizations, and other partners into the FAFSA process and comprehensively tested the FAFSA form, system, and user supports at scale through a rigorous beta testing period. Since Oct. 1, through four rounds of testing, more than 167,000 students have submitted the online 2025–26 application; the Department has processed these forms and sent records to more than 5,200 schools across all states. The Department also tested the application with a variety of student groups—including those who faced particular challenges last year—and engaged with different colleges and universities, software vendors, state agencies, and federal partners to test FAFSA data and systems.

"I'm pleased to announce that after four successful rounds of beta testing, the 2025–26 FAFSA form is now available to all students and families,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “After months of hard work and lots of feedback from students, schools, and other stakeholders, we can say with confidence that FAFSA is working and will serve as the gateway to college access and affordability to millions of students. Already, over 650,000 more applicants are eligible for Pell Grants, and more students are receiving Pell Grants, this school year compared to last year. We stand ready to help millions more students complete the FAFSA and get the financial aid they need to pursue their dreams of a college education.”

The Department has taken steps to modernize internal systems and processes, address issues in the FAFSA system, and put in place features that further enhance the user experience and improve functionality of the form. In addition, the Department released and updated resources and materials to help students and families better navigate the FAFSA form and process.

“We need a better FAFSA form to deliver financial aid to students going to college and other forms of education after high school,” said U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal. “Thank you to everyone who has helped the 2025–26 FAFSA launch successfully and ahead of schedule, including students and families, Department staff, and financial aid administrators and counselors across the country.”

For those who need additional assistance, the Department significantly increased staffing at the Federal Student Aid Information Center (contact center) by adding more than 700 agents since January and an additional 225 agents over the next few weeks for ongoing surge support. In anticipation of high demand as part of the official release of the FAFSA form, this week, the Department added extended FAFSA-only weeknight and Saturday contact center hours. Despite that, the Department cautions users that, during some surge periods, callers may temporarily experience longer than usual wait times. The Department will continue to add agents in the coming weeks to further support the 2025–26 FAFSA cycle.

“The 2025–26 FAFSA form that we officially released today is the same form that has been live for the past 7 weeks for the more than 140,000 students who successfully submitted applications. Our comprehensive beta testing with community-based organizations, high schools and school districts, colleges and universities, software vendors, and state agencies across the country follows industry best practices and has given us the confidence that our systems are ready,” said FAFSA Executive Advisor Jeremy Singer.

The FAFSA form and system are in a strong position, but the Department will continue working to ensure every student has the help they need to access higher education. In the coming days and weeks, the Department will carefully monitor the 2025–26 FAFSA form, as well as the contact center, and make any needed adjustments to improve the experience for students, families, and the financial aid community. The Department will begin processing paper forms by early December. In the coming months, the Department will further enhance the user experience and release additional functionality, including batch corrections and paper corrections, to facilitate a smoother process for students, families, and institutions.

The Department looks forward to continuing its work with partners to ensure that all students and their families can easily access the FAFSA form, have timely and clear information, and can quickly complete the application and access aid.

Additional Resources for Students, Families, and Partners

The Department has taken actions to significantly improve the Federal Student Aid Information Center’s contact center experience for students, families, and institutions, including to support the official release of the 2025–26 FAFSA form. These improvements include: Increasing staffing by nearly 80%. Since January, we have added more than 700 agents to the contact center.
Coordinating with the vendor team to ensure all agents, including those typically assigned to back-office processing, are trained on FAFSA to allow for an "all hands on deck" approach if needed.
Adding 225 agents over the next few weeks, in addition to the 700 agents who have already been added, for ongoing surge support, enabling extended hours of operation.
Implementing hold time announcements to inform callers of current wait times, giving them the option to hold or call back during less busy hours.

In addition to normal operating hours, found on StudentAid.gov, students and families will have access to FAFSA-only hours at the contact center that include evenings and weekends. The expanded hours begin Nov. 22, 2024 and will extend through Mar. 2, 2025. Students and families can reach agents at the contact center in English or in Spanish. Interpretation services in additional languages can be accessed here at StudentAid.gov.

Day(s) Regular Contact Center Hours FAFSA-only Support Hours
Monday 8 a.m.–9 p.m. ET Available until 10 p.m. ET
Tuesday & Wednesday 8 a.m.–8 p.m. ET Available until 10 p.m. ET
Thursday & Friday 8 a.m.–6 p.m. ET Available until 10 p.m. ET
Saturday Closed Noon–5 p.m. ET
Sunday Closed Closed

Notes: The contact center is closed on all federal holidays. On Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, the contact center will operate during regular hours and will not provide expanded FAFSA-only support hours.

The Department has recently released a suite of resources to assist students and families in completing and submitting the FAFSA form during the 2025–26 cycle, including:“Who’s the Parent on the FAFSA Form?” Wizard—A new, stand-alone tool to help students and families determine who will need to provide contributor information on the 2025–26 FAFSA form prior to starting the application.
“Creating Your StudentAid.gov Account” Page—A new resource that explains what families and partners need to know about creating a StudentAid.gov account.
Pro Tips for Completing the FAFSA Form—Updated tips for preparing to complete and submit the FAFSA form. This resource will also be linked from the StudentAid.gov Dashboard to promote easier access for students and their required contributor(s).
Federal Student Aid Estimator—The tool provides an estimate of the 2025–26 Student Aid Index and Federal Pell Grant eligibility calculation.
Federal Student Aid YouTube Channel: FAFSA Videos—Updated videos to help students and families understand the importance of the FAFSA form, who is a FAFSA contributor, and what happens after submitting the form.

Throughout the fall, the Department has released resources to assist our partners to help students and families prepare for and navigate the 2025–26 FAFSA cycle, including: 2025–26 Counselor Resource for Completing the FAFSA Form—The resource provides counselors and advisors with information and resources to help guide students and their families through the FAFSA form.
2025–26 FAFSA Roadmap—The tool highlights key dates for the FAFSA form launch, as well as timelines for the release of resources to assist our partners.
2025–26 FAFSA Preview Presentation—The resource provides financial aid administrators, advisors, and counselors with reference tools for staff trainings and financial aid nights. The presentation deck contains screenshots which highlight changes to the online 2025–26 FAFSA form.
2025–26 FAFSA Prototype—The tool provides the financial aid community an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the FAFSA user experience.

Updated information and outreach tools for counselors, college access professionals, and other advisors can be found in the Financial Aid Toolkit.