'Ghost students' are haunting WA community colleges — to steal financial aid Ann Dornfeld October 30, 2025 / 5:05 pm

Last spring, the art instructors at Green River College in Auburn were excited. Their upcoming summer classes were far more popular than usual — some were already at capacity.

“Summer quarter is typically lower enrolled, right? And so we're like, 'Hey, wait a minute. This is really cool,'" said instructor Paul Metivier, who chairs the school's fine arts division. Teachers' enthusiasm soon turned to fright, however, when they learned that fraudsters were flooding the college with fictional students.

The registrar’s office started deleting them as fast as they could, Metivier said.

"But what would happen is then, they would backfill right in,” he said.

That meant c

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