CLEVELAND — A problem on college campuses called “ghost students” is on the rise. We’re talking about scammers who steal people’s identities, enroll in college, and steal student loans. One Northeast Ohio woman is in a frustrating battle to prove she didn’t take out a student loan.
Jocelyn Predina said she saw her credit report dip a few points last year, so she examined her credit report only to find loans she never knew existed.
"This is no longer my identity. Someone else has everything of my life,” said Predina.
She told us someone got loans approved for a community college in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“Have you ever been to Baton Rouge before?” we asked.
“No, never,” she answered.
THEY SENT A TON OF DOCUMENTS
She said she immediately started trying to fix this potential $16,000 problem. Her mom, Joann Perdina, helped. They sent in all kinds of documents, including multiple IDs, police reports, and even pointing out misinformation on the fake Jocelyn’s paperwork.
"Her application has 20 things wrong on it, and it still was approved,” said Joann. “And nobody cares.”
So, we contacted the U.S. Department of Education three times. It finally said it couldn’t respond to our questions because of a partial government shutdown.
BIG PROBLEM ACROSS THE COUNTRY
"Right now, we have about 200 investigations open nationwide,” said Jason Williams from the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Education.
He was talking recently with Good Morning America about “ghost student” fraud on a national level, totaling $350 million during the past five years.
In 2024, in California alone, nearly a third of all community college applicants were fraudulent, according to ABC News.
"We’ve had cases where they’re misusing the identity of people, and they’re in their 80s and 90s,” said Williams.
WHAT'S HAPPENING IN OUR AREA?
We called around to local community colleges to see if they’ve been affected by this. Tri-C told us the percentage of these kinds of cases is very low compared to enrollment, but the number of potential risk incidents has grown over the last three years. There were more than 300 “Red Flag” accounts in 2025.
“We see in some of these fraud schemes where people are enrolled in two or three different schools at the same time receiving aid in all of them,” said Williams.
Meanwhile, Predina’s fight continues even with her mom’s help, who, by the way, has an investigative background.
"I did investigations for the state of Ohio and brought cases to administrative and to criminal court,” said Joann. “So, I do know how to put evidence together.”
Jocelyn said she used to work for a collections attorney’s office for 10 years as well, but still, with their efforts, the roadblocks exist.
"It’s very confusing, very frustrating,” said Jocelyn. “Every time I get a new letter, they’re asking for the same documents but not telling me what’s wrong with it.”
