Preventing Higher Ed Financial Aid Fraud
Preventing Financial Aid Fraud for College of the Canyons
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
Voyatek’s Financial Aid Module, part of our Student Success Analytics solution, uses machine learning to automate identification of applications with a high potential of fraud.
The machine learning model flags applications with a high likelihood of potential fraud and filters out those unlikely to be fraudulent, saving hundreds of hours of manual effort. Unlike a manual review, our solution picks up on complex interactions and detects new patterns in datasets that would be difficult for a human to spot. The model is adaptive and delivers continuously improving results, enabling institutions to keep pace with ever-changing fraud strategies.
Outcomes
Voyatek’s 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.
