Preventing Higher Ed Financial Aid Fraud
Outcomes Delivered
Voyatek’s solution correctly identified 96% of fraudulent applications when implemented at College of the Canyons (COC), preventing nearly $172,000 in fraudulent payments in a single year.
Challenge
Like many higher ed institutions, College of the Canyons (COC) is seeing a surge in applications submitted under stolen or fabricated identities by fraudsters targeting financial aid funds. Unfortunately, COC had no automated solution to identify fraudulent applications. Instead, staffers were manually reviewing thousands of applications. This process was slow and unsustainable, overwhelming the financial aid staff and resulting in costly disbursements to fraudulent applicants.
Solution
To safeguard our clients’ institutional assets and student funding, we created the Application Fraud Firewall—a cloud-based, adaptive AI solution. This innovative tool proactively evaluates student applications by utilizing a wide range of public and private data sources, enabling institutions to identify and track potentially fraudulent aid applications before any funds are allocated to scammers.
Our continuously evolving fraud detection model was developed to keep pace with the ever-changing fraud schemes. By utilizing a machine learning algorithm, the model incorporates multiple variables, including application origin and student contact information, to flag potentially fraudulent aid applications. The dashboards optimize institutional awards to eligible applicants; identify FA applicants who are missing key documentation and help nudge them toward file completion; and identify fraudulent applications to ensure that funding is provided to real students with need.
Outcomes
Voyatek’s Application Fraud Firewall solution correctly identified 96% of fraudulent applications when implemented at COC, preventing nearly $172,000 in fraudulent payments in a single year.
In addition to the financial savings, COC has greatly reduced the amount of time and staff dedicated to manual review and is now able to focus more resources on supporting students.
