LOS ANGELES — Despite a request last August from the chancellor's office that all 116 California Community Colleges report on enrollment fraud involving fake student bots, nearly 40% of campuses failed to submit any information, deepening concerns among the Board of Governors on Monday about the extent of possible wrongdoing and how it may be affecting the system's plunging enrollment.
The lack of responses from 44 campuses — including all nine within the Los Angeles Community College District, the largest district in the nation — makes it difficult for officials to assess whether the community college system has a firm grasp on its enrollment crisis and how widespread fake enrollments may be at a time when administrators are scrambling to figure out how to stem an estimated enrollment drop of 20% from fall 2019 to fall 2021.
In addition, 15% of the system's colleges have not answered preliminary enrollment surveys, which help guide strategies to increase enrollment after the pandemic decline.
