Barton Community College’s Board of Trustees has approved the purchase of Voyatek’s Application Fraud Firewall software, an artificial intelligence tool designed to stop fraudulent student enrollment applications before they result in stolen federal financial aid funds.
The five-year subscription, totaling $253,420, was presented to the board Tuesday by Vice President of Administration Mark Dean and Vice President of Student Services Angie Maddy, who described a worsening national crisis of “ghost students” — fictitious or stolen-identity applicants who successfully enroll, collect federal aid money, and vanish.
“Once they get the federal financial aid, all of a sudden, they disappear and they no longer take our classes,” Dean told the board.
A Growing National Epidemic
College officials painted a stark picture of the fraud problem, which has accelerated since 2020 alongside the rapid expansion of online learning. Fraudulent applicants submit applications that appear legitimate, gain access to the college’s student portal and email systems, apply for federal financial aid through the FAFSA, and then disappear once funds are disbursed — leaving administrators to clean up the mess.
“It’s a huge mess,” Dean said. “It’s not only Barton. It is nationwide, and it is an epidemic that needs to be solved.”
The fallout extends well beyond lost dollars. Staff across financial aid, enrollment services, admissions, and the business office must spend significant time investigating and reversing fraudulent enrollments. Innocent people whose identities have been stolen receive collection notices from Barton for unpaid tuition — and then must file police reports to document the theft of their personal information.
“I live in California, have never taken a class with Barton before. I’m 68 years old and I didn’t participate in any of this,” Dean quoted a fraud victim as saying, describing a scenario the college has encountered repeatedly.
“We get those regularly. We got one two days ago,” he said.
The scope of the problem nationally is significant. Vice President Maddy noted that approximately one year ago, California conducted an extensive investigation and determined that roughly one-third of community college applications in the state were fraudulent — amounting to roughly 2.1 million applications.
No comparable statewide audit has been conducted in Kansas, Maddy said, but she stressed that the problem is happening across the country and that Barton is not immune.
“To this point, it’s not that Barton hasn’t expended efforts,” Maddy said. “But this should be incredibly helpful to ensure that the applications that we are allowing to go through into our system are actual, legitimate students.”
How the Software Works
The Voyatek Application Fraud Firewall uses adaptive AI to evaluate applications in real time, drawing on a wide range of public and private data sources. The system integrates with admissions systems, student information systems, and learning management systems to cross-reference applicant data and flag suspicious patterns before any enrollment or financial aid is processed.
Among the red flags the system checks: application origin and IP addresses, student contact information, high school location and graduation dates, previously earned credits, and whether the totality of a student’s records tells a coherent story.
Dean gave an example of one potential ghost student. “We had one of these: A student (apparently) graduated from Great Bend High School, had a house here in Great Bend, had a Great Bend address. But when you look at all the records for this individual, they lived in Pennsylvania. So they match all of the information up to see if it makes sense.”
The software also uses digital identity verification technology to validate government-issued IDs. New applicants will be required to click a link within their application and photograph both sides of a driver’s license or passport. The system can then determine whether the ID is genuine — including reading and verifying the barcode data on the back of the license.
“Most of the scammers out there, they throw a barcode up there, but it doesn’t make any sense — it doesn’t say anything,” Dean told the board. “(Voyatek is) going to be able to tell whether these individuals are real people or they’re scammers.”
The AI can also detect whether a profile photo submitted with an application is a real photograph or an AI-generated image.
Stopping Fraud on the Front End
A recurring theme in the board presentation was the shift from reactive cleanup to proactive prevention. Currently, Barton relies on staff manually reviewing spreadsheets of flagged applications — a time-consuming process that still allows some fraudulent students to slip through.
“It stops them before they get a Barton email address, before they get access to our systems, before they actually enroll — and before they can get federal aid,” Dean said.
One unnamed community college already using the platform is reportedly flagging and stopping 100 fraudulent applications per month, with the system catching approximately 98% of fraudulent submissions before they enter the processing pipeline.
Barton President Dr. Marcus Garstecki supported the purchase, noting the growing number of scammers.
“These guys are really good, and they’re going to get better at their craft, and there’s going to be more of them,” he said. “I think we’re going to see this continue exponentially and I think this is a good tool to help us slow it down significantly.”
Pricing and Procurement
The $253,420 cost covers a five-year subscription, with pricing based on application volume — currently pegged at approximately 18,000 applications per year. If application volume remains consistent, any unused allocation would carry over to the following year. Should Barton’s application volume exceed 25,000, the per-application rate would adjust accordingly.
“It’ll be 78 cents or something like that per application to stop a scammer,” Dean said.
A college official said fraud risk also carries implications for the institution’s relationship with federal regulators — noting that having more fraudulent students on the books is precisely the situation Barton wants to avoid.
The purchase was made through a cooperative purchasing program used by colleges nationwide, which negotiated pricing across all vendors to secure the most favorable rate available. The board approved the purchase, which is already budgeted using Capital Outlay funds.
Voyatek’s platform is currently adding approximately four new colleges per month and is in use at institutions across the United States.
