Officers from the Woodlawn Precinct were notified about the double shooting after receiving a call about two 18-year-olds walking into a local hospital at 11:50 p.m. One man had “serious” injuries to his upper body while the other had non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Detectives are still investigating the incident. Anyone with information can call 410-887-4636.

Have a news tip? Contact Chevall Pryce at cpryce@baltsun.com

The woman was found at 9:45 a.m. after a Maryland State Trooper stopped to check a black Jeep Wrangler parked on the right shoulder of the outer loop of I-695, west of Perring Parkway, police said. The trooper found a woman lying in the backseat of the Jeep. After several attempts to communicate with her, emergency medical services gained access to the vehicle before pronouncing her dead on the scene.

State troopers, the Maryland State Police Crash Team and the state police criminal enforcement division responded to the scene. Crime scene technicians and the forensic sciences division with state police processed evidence on the scene with the Baltimore County Police Department.

State police are still investigating the death. Anyone with information can contact the Golden Ring Barrack at 410-780-2700.

Have a news tip? Contact Chevall Pryce at cpryce@baltsun.com

The Code Red extreme heat alert was issued by the Baltimore City Health Department in preparation for the high-90s temperatures forecast at the beginning of the workweek. The department urged locals to reduce outside activities and stay in air-conditioned locations.

[Get the latest weathercast from FOX45 News]

The Health Department also recommends people in the city drink plenty of water, avoid alcohol and caffeine, make sure to not leave children or pets alone in closed vehicles, and check on older adults or sick neighbors who might need help responding to the heat.

Monday is expected to reach a high of 95 with sunny and clear conditions. It will likely cool down to a low around 75.

Tuesday’s high is projected to reach 97 degrees with a heat index of 101 in another sunny, clear day with light wind. The heat index is a measure of how hot the air feels to the body.

Wednesday is not included in the heat advisory but will likely also see a high of 97. There’s a 20% chance of showers and thunderstorms during the day, bumping up to 40% in the evening as temperatures cool down to 75.

Thunderstorms are likely on Thursday, with an 80% chance of precipitation and a high near 87, breaking from the extreme heat.

Friday is predicted to be mostly cloudy with a high of 79 and a low of 64, as well as a chance of showers during the day.

BGE bills are expected to decrease roughly $3.36 a month, thanks to some previously negotiated credits, but not until at least next June 1, an analysis by a state utility watchdog shows.

The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel on Thursday reviewed results of an annual “capacity market auction,” completed this week by PJM Interconnection, the operator of the wholesale electricity market and 13-state regional power grid. The auction, in which companies make competitive bids to offer power generation, sets the wholesale price for electricity and enables enough supply to meet the projected needs of more than 67 million people in 13 states and Washington, D.C., for a year starting June 2026.

Supply prices are separate from and in addition to the delivery fees that are paid to utilities and have rates regulated by the state’s Maryland Public Service Commission.

This year’s auction set a record high clearing price of $329 per megawatt-day, up from last year’s clearing price of $270 per megawatt day. Power generators and others offer a price per megawatt of power for each day. Each bidder is paid the clearing price times 365 days for each megawatt they bid at or below the clearing price.

Last year’s price, a nine-fold jump from the previous year, has helped send utility bills soaring this year. BGE customers are paying an average $16.49 per month more this year, as of last month, as a result of the last two auctions.

Maryland consumers are being forced to shoulder the cost of supporting the massive power needs of data centers, mostly located outside the state, Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said in the analysis. Data centers accounted for more than 5,400 megawatts of increased demand compared with last year’s level.

In several OPC filings before federal regulators, the office argues that Maryland customers must pay hundreds of millions of dollars for transmission projects driven by data center load growth occurring in Northern Virginia.

“Residential customers are not causing these excessive costs and should not be paying for them,” Lapp said in Thursday’s announcement. “Utility regulation is failing to protect residential customers, contributing to an energy affordability crisis.”

Despite the promise of slight relief by next summer, BGE customers have been squeezed by higher bills.

Annie Albert, a Fells Point resident, said she’s taken steps for several years to conserve energy and make her 235-year-old rowhome more energy efficient. She said she’s cut back on electricity usage but still finds herself paying $500 a month this year, about the same as last year. She’s cut back spending in other areas, such going out to eat less and taking fewer vacations.

“Our prices have gone up, for sure,” said Albert, who has lived in BGE territory for a decade.  “We’ve also seen an increase in the unreliability of the grid. This summer we’ve lost power more times than we have in the entire time I’ve lived here.

“But what are you going to do, it’s one of those necessities you just have to pay for,” she said.

PJM said wholesale capacity accounts for a relatively small portion of electricity bills and could translate into a year-over-year increase of 1.5% to 5% in some customers bills throughout the region.

Besides data center expansion, electricity demand is soaring because of electrification and economic growth, the grid operator said. Power generation included in the recent auction included 45% natural gas, 21% nuclear, 22% coal, 4% hydro, 3% wind and 1% solar.

PJM transmission costs per megawatt hour have more than tripled when adjusted for inflation from 2007 through last year, according to the 2024 State of the Market Report for PJM.

The People’s Counsel had advocated for changes to PMJ’s market auction rules that helped boost the amount of electric supply bidding into the market this year. In one change supported by Gov. Wes Moore and other PJM governors, a cap was set on the clearing price. But even increased electric supply could not offset higher demand, Lapp said.

Customers of Maryland utilities Pepco, Delmarva Power and Potomac Edison all can expect energy bill increases next summer, ranging from $2.50 to $5.24 per megawatt hour.

For the first time in several years, the price for the BGE zone cleared at the same price as the overall PJM regional price because the auction included two Anne Arundel County power plants that are shutting down but required by PJM to stay online until reliability measures are put in place.

Those plants were excluded from last year’s auction, driving the auction results up by as much as $5 billion, according to an Office of People’s Counsel report released last August.

Have a news tip? Contact Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun.com, (410) 332-6672.

According to three lawsuits filed recently in Baltimore County District Court, Vistant owes each of the foreign aid workers about $20,000 to $29,000 for work they did before the end of January, when the Trump administration froze USAID funding and issued stop-work orders.

Vistant’s founder, Walter Barnes III, of Potomac, is among four men who pleaded guilty in a decade-long bribery scheme involving USAID contracts. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Barnes resigned as Vistant’s president and chairman in 2023, according to federal documents, and the current CEO, George Washington, declined to comment in an email to The Baltimore Sun.

The contractors who sued Vistant are Alanna Shaikh, Amjad Hamza and Noor Majdalani. They say they were not paid for their work and expenses incurred in programs under contract to the company in December and January.

“It’s very clear people we relied on to do good work overseas are being really mistreated,” said Laura L. Dunn, a New York-based attorney representing the plaintiffs. “We’re sort of leaving them twisting in the wind.”

The suits note that the contractors received “stop work” orders on Jan. 27, which they complied with, but then weren’t paid for work and expenses they were already owed. Vistant terminated their email accounts and their access to the timesheet portal, the suits said.

According to one suit, filed earlier this month, a contractor was given less than a week to leave the job and housing in Morocco after the stop-work order, despite Vistant already having paid for the accommodations through June. The lawsuits also involved USAID programs in Yemen and Syria.

Emails from Vistant, included in the suits, show company officials saying they were trying to see how various directives and rulings in lawsuits challenging the USAID cuts would affect reimbursements to contractors. The company said it was reducing costs, cutting staff and expenses, and urged the contractors to be patient. At least one email from a Vistant senior vice president in April said the company had received “some partial payments” for “activity” prior to the stop-work order.

As the months went by and the contractors remained unpaid, their emails reflect growing desperation for the funds.

“I’m sure you’re aware we’re going through difficult times,” one contractor wrote in March, asking for “updates about the process … even if it’s bad news.”

“My housing situation makes this payment critical,” another contractor wrote in April.

The cases are part of the continuing fallout from the dismantling of the foreign aid programs, or as then-presidential advisor Elon Musk characterized it on his X social media platform, “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” The USAID cuts were felt deeply in Baltimore, home to several humanitarian groups, such as Catholic Relief Services, and global health programs at Johns Hopkins and its affiliates that had received funding from the agency.

The bribery scheme that Vistant was named in was uncovered by USAID’s Office of the Inspector General in 2023 during the Biden administration and had been going on for about 10 years, according to the Justice Department.

The DOJ said that a USAID contracting officer, Roderick Watson, of Woodstock, agreed to receive bribes in exchange for using his influence to award contracts to a Florida man, Darryl Britt, who owned a company called Apprio. Vistant was a subcontractor to Apprio on one of the contracts received via Watson’s influence, the DOJ said, and eventually became a prime contractor.

Britt and Vistant’s Barnes paid bribes to Watson, often concealing them by passing them through Paul Young, of Columbia, another subcontractor, the DOJ said. The bribes also came in the form of laptops and cellphones, suite tickets to an NBA game, a country club wedding, down payments on houses and jobs for relatives, according to the DOJ.

The Justice Department said that while Vistant’s cooperation with the federal investigation was “initially delayed and limited,” it eventually began fully cooperating. The department decided that because the company accepted responsibility for its criminal conduct, and that paying a bigger penalty would threaten its continued viability, it would resolve the case with a deferred prosecution agreement and a civil settlement of $100,000.

In 2022, Vistant, then known as PM Consulting Group, was named the second fastest-growing private company by the Baltimore Business Journal, having tripled its annual revenue since 2019. It had 160 employees and made about $34.19 million in 2021, the Journal reported.

Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060 or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.

Vincent Edison, 45, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and illegal possession of firearms. Edison led a West Baltimore drug operation that sold fentanyl capsules for hours each day to scores of buyers, including undercover agents, according to federal investigators.

Investigators said Edison operated a drug “shop” at Winchester and North Dukeland streets in West Baltimore that was active 10 to 12 hours a day for months in 2022. Text messages obtained by law enforcement revealed Edison acting as a manager of street dealers, directing them to open on time or face wage penalties, and even firing those who failed to meet his expectations.

His fentanyl network went outside Baltimore, supplying buyers in more distant counties.

On Dec. 7, 2022, DEA surveillance caught Edison delivering a black plastic bag to a dealer at the drug shop. Shortly after, authorities intercepted a vehicle registered to a Washington County resident and found 500 gel caps of fentanyl weighing 263 grams inside a black bag.

The investigation later uncovered Edison’s stash house in Baltimore County, where fentanyl was prepared for street-level distribution. Covert surveillance revealed that Edison made daily visits to the location, often leaving with black bags that he would deliver to dealers.

On Jan. 27, 2023, authorities executed search warrants at Edison’s Baltimore residence and the stash house. During the searches, they recovered five firearms — including an AR-style rifle, a shotgun, and three loaded handguns — despite Edison being prohibited from owning weapons. Agents also seized 70 grams of fentanyl, about $90,800 in cash, and luxury jewelry valued at approximately $150,000.

The stash location also housed a fentanyl processing lab equipped with 22 capsule-filling machines, scales, gloves, and hundreds of capsules. Investigators seized 133 grams of powdered fentanyl and 400 additional capsules, totaling 307 grams.

Have a news tip? Contact Todd Karpovich at tkarpovich@baltsun.com or on X as @ToddKarpovich.

If confirmed, her new role would be to root out waste, fraud and abuse in county government, primarily through conducting investigations into complaints and producing reports. Recent reports produced by Kelly Madigan, the county’s current inspector general, for instance, have focused on fraud and misuse of county resources by county employees.

The job is somewhat of a shift from a career in auditing — at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where Walker has spent much of her career, audits and evaluations “generally look at groups, processes, controls or structures,” rather than individual employees, according to the agency. This type of work differs from the agency’s investigations in that it does not deal with criminal activities.

Walker’s appointment to the IG role is subject to approval by the Baltimore County Council, which will discuss her nomination Tuesday. Here’s what to know about her career.

Walker’s most recent job

Walker was most recently a deputy assistant inspector general for audits, inspections and evaluations at the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Inspector General, according to social media posts from the agency.

She was sworn in to the role on Sept. 30 and had been working on overseeing USAID’s support to Ukraine.

It’s unclear when Walker left the agency, however. President Donald Trump’s administration began dismantling USAID earlier this year, placing all direct-hire personnel, aside from leadership and those deemed mission-critical, on administrative leave at 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 23.

Walker’s most recent audit report for USAID was dated March 19.

A former longtime EPA auditor

Prior to her stint at USAID, Walker was with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Inspector General. She began her career as an auditor for the agency in 2003, according to her LinkedIn profile, and progressed through the ranks to project manager and director roles, with a focus on audits.

While there, Walker led and conducted performance audits of national environmental program areas, focusing on drinking water, clean water, contracts and grants, county officials said in a statement Thursday.

One audit Walker worked on focused on the EPA’s response to water contamination in Flint, Michigan. The report, released in July 2018, found that the EPA region there did not manage its drinking water oversight program properly, limiting its ability to respond to the situation in Flint and delaying responses, among other issues.

Walker’s other audits and evaluations have focused on the EPA’s responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Irma, as well as the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi.

Part of Walker’s tenure at the EPA was under then-Inspector General Arthur Elkins, who served in that role from 2010 to 2018.

Elkins was also a member of Klausmeier’s five-person inspector general selection panel. The panel, assembled in June, was tasked with reviewing resumes, interviewing applicants and making recommendations to the county executive about who should be the next inspector general.

Though Elkins was not present during the panel’s first round of interviews due to scheduling conflicts, according to Klausmeier’s spokeswoman, he joined in the final three interviews of Walker, Madigan and an unknown third candidate.

Career accolades and education

Walker has received multiple awards throughout her career, according to county officials.

Her accolades include an EPA Gold Medal for her work on congressional earmarks and an EPA OIG Silver Medal for Superior Service, among other nods from the EPA and the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

Walker has a degree in global policy studies from Chatham University, according to a 2018 biography from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. She also has a master’s in international development and policy from the University of Pittsburgh.

Have a news tip? Contact Natalie Jones at najones@baltsun.com.

Just after 4 p.m. Thursday, Klausmeier announced Khadija Walker as her nominee to be the next Baltimore County inspector general, deciding not to reappoint the current watchdog, Kelly Madigan.

Walker has more than 20 years of experience working at the federal level, though the experience is in audits — rather than investigations. Walker worked as an auditor for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and, most recently, worked as the deputy assistant inspector general for audits at U.S. Agency for International Development. She was hired at the foreign aid agency in September 2024, just months before the Trump administration began cutting jobs at USAID.

“She has only audit experience,” said Isabel Mercedes Cumming, Baltimore City inspector general. “An auditor goes after looking at regulations to see if they comply in that type of stuff, where an investigator responds to hotline complaints, responds to the people. That’s why inspector general is called the people’s watchdog — because their job changes all the time.”

The skill set between an auditor and an investigator is completely different, Cumming added.

“You’re doing an audit, you’re just targeting on a process,” she explained. “Investigations hold people accountable. Audits don’t.”

Touting her pick, Klausmeier said, “Khadija has more than 22 years of high-level inspector general experience.” However, Cumming said that’s not an accurate description of Walker’s résumé.

“That’s just not true. She was a supervisor,” she said. “It’s completely different, and she was never an inspector general, whereas you had a candidate that was an inspector general and has been inspector general and is certified as such.”

FOX45 News asked Klausmeier’s office if she believed Walker’s experience conducting audits would provide her with the necessary skills to conduct investigations, given her apparent lack of work history in that area of expertise.

While Klausmeier’s office acknowledged that much of Walker’s work at both USAID and the EPA was in auditing, they defended her work history as well, claiming that Walker “has led teams with investigators on staff and assisted in ongoing investigations throughout her career.”

“OIG audits and investigations are closely related: both rely on data analysis and information gathering, they often occur in tandem and have the same goal of identifying and preventing fraud, waste and abuse in government,” a spokesperson for Klausmeier said. “Ms. Walker has been intimately involved in both.”

Meanwhile, there have been other questions about the selection process overall. Once Klausmeier told Madigan she would not be renewing her contract — by handing her a letter during the first meeting the two had on May 12 — Klausmeier posted the job and formed a selection committee.

Arthur Elkins Jr. was one of the five members of the panel. After the first round of interviews, which included Madigan, it was revealed Klausmeier would be participating in the second round of interviews. Elkins was not available for the first round of interviews due to scheduling conflicts, according to a spokesperson for the Baltimore County Executive’s Office.

Klausmeier’s office said the selection panel made its recommendations to her following interviews, which had been the plan. Klausmeier wanted to have Elkins’ “expertise and input from his years of serving as inspector general during the interview process, so he was invited to be part of the final interviews,” according to a spokesperson.

After Walker was named Klausmeier’s pick, FOX45 learned she worked under Elkins’ leadership during his time as inspector general for the EPA. He left the agency in 2018, according to an EPA news release.

When asked about a potential conflict of interest in having Elkins involved in the interview with Walker, a spokesperson for Klausmeier said Walker “may have interacted with him three or four times on case work but never on a one-on-one basis.”

“She hasn’t seen or spoken with Mr. Elkins in nearly a decade,” the spokesperson added.

There were more than 300 employees of the EPA’s Office of Inspector General in 12 locations at the time, according to Klausmeier’s office.

The translation of experience appears to be a concern for at least one member of the Baltimore County Council, which will ultimately have to decide whether to confirm Walker’s nomination.

When Councilman Izzy Patoka learned of Walker’s nomination over Madigan, he said he believed her federal experience is “very different” from work done at the local level.

“I think that Kelly Madigan has done an outstanding job in a tough environment and should be reappointed,” Patoka said. “She established the inspector general’s office here in Baltimore County, so she is well beyond the learning curve needed to be an effective IG.”

“If confirmed, Walker would have to start at the very beginning here at the local level,” Patoka added.

Cumming also pointed out the differences between Walker and Madigan’s work histories, noting Madigan is an attorney and knows Maryland law.

“This person does not have the certifications necessary to be inspector general, and she actually has never been an inspector general,” Cumming said.

While acknowledging that Walker could potentially learn the necessary skills on the job and “anything is possible,” Cumming said, “experience is probably the great equalizer of anybody.”

While acknowledging that Walker could potentially learn the necessary skills on the job and “anything is possible,” Cumming said, “Experience is probably the great equalizer of anybody.”

Walker’s nomination is expected to be discussed Tuesday during the Baltimore County Council’s 4 p.m. work session. A rally to support Kelly Madigan is also scheduled for that day; that’s set to begin at 3 p.m. It’s not clear when a confirmation vote for Walker will be scheduled, and until she is confirmed, Madigan will stay in place as Baltimore County’s watchdog as a holdover.

Have a news tip? Contact Mikenzie Frost at mbfrost@sbgtv.com.

“That’s scary behavior,” said Gina Schafer, who lives in Forge Heights. “If they don’t have any empathy and they’re gonna hurt defenseless animals, you know, what’s next? More animals? People? It’s just really horrific.”

All that remained on Bangert Avenue on Friday was a dark, arching mark seared into the pavement. Up the street, about 100 feet away, was a burnt, white and blue gardening glove and closer to the mess was a singed cardboard box. Neighbors who spoke to The Baltimore Sun said Baltimore County Police “weren’t treating it as a crime scene.”

“We’re just really concerned because obviously, this was heinous,” said another neighborhood resident, Tiffany Doxanas.

Police spokesperson Trae Corbin said officers responded to a “hazardous condition” in Perry Hall and that Thursday’s incident is under investigation. When asked whether it was being considered a crime, Corbin said, “That will be determined once the investigation progresses.”

Dale Groth, who moved into Forge Heights in May, said he left for work Thursday around 5:30 a.m., hoping to beat rush-hour traffic near the BWI Airport.

It was dark out, so when he drove past the deer, he said he “didn’t think much of it” — perhaps it was roadkill, or maybe a bag.

A few “concerned neighbors,” including Doxanas’ teenaged son Caden, told Groth what’d happened. He said that the news upset his wife, who worried about the three deer they’d noticed living behind their house: a mom and two babies, he said.

“I get it,” Groth said of everyone’s concern. “It was weird.”

Caden Doxanas said Friday that he and a friend had been knocking on doors around, looking for any information they could find. Bits of rope, found near the fawn’s body, were left on the street, he said. They’d also found the burnt glove and box. But none of the nearby security or doorbell cameras caught anything.

The closest thing the 17-year-old found to a lead was a torn-up Wawa receipt. He told The Sun he drove to the convenience store to see if they would check security cameras, but was turned away.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, and I just don’t know what to do,” Caden Doxanas said.

The teenager, his mother and two neighbors said Friday that they’d never seen anything like the burnt fawn in their wooded neighborhood, where they said a lot of families and children live.

When asked whether he now felt uncomfortable around Forge Heights, Caden Doxanas said he didn’t.

“I trust myself, and I still trust the people around me,” he said.

Baltimore County Police are asking anyone with information about the fawn to call 410-887-4636.

Have a news tip? Contact Luke Parker at lparker@baltsun.com, 410-725-6214, on X as @lparkernews or on Signal as @parkerluke.34.

Fake applications, often generated by artificial intelligence, defraud educational institutions by generating financial aid for people who aren’t actually applying to college and later disappear with the money.

Such “ghost” student scams have been an increasing problem in Maryland and across the country and imperil student aid coffers, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

“When rampant fraud is taking aid away from eligible students, disrupting the operations of colleges, and ripping off taxpayers, we have a responsibility to act,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in June, when announcing stricter security measures for the fall semester.

The spring of 2024 began an onslaught of fake applications to the Community College of Baltimore County, with more volume and complexity than the institution had seen before , according to Matthew Lang, the school’s assistant vice president of enrollment and outreach operations.

The school has been developing solutions for the scam applications since May of that year, he said. But outpacing scammers has turned into an arms race. At first, batches of 20 to 30 applications would arrive within short periods, causing staff to flag them. In response, the scammers started submitting applications at a slower rate, one every two hours.

“We start to see a pattern. We stop it. Then they adjust,” Lang said. He said the phony applications are likely tied to criminal rings, not just individual scammers.

In Maryland, the problem appears to be primarily affecting community colleges.

“We are not aware of this happening at our universities, but we are aware of this happening at other institutions and are monitoring,” Michael Sandler, a spokesperson for the University System of Maryland, said in a statement Thursday. The USM does not include community colleges.

The Department of Education noted that such scams siphon millions of dollars in aid money intended for real students. One community college in California flagged 10,000 suspicious applications, the department said. Members of California’s congressional delegation, in a letter to the department, stated that 34% of the state’s community college applications were found to be fraudulent.

Minnesota saw similar rates of fraud, the Department of Education noted. And, in the fall of 2024, the College of Southern Nevada wrote off $7.4 million due to fraudulent enrollments, it added.

As a result, ineligible recipients nationwide had received $90 million in student aid as of May, the education department reported. As of February, $40 million in direct loan payments and $6 million in Pell Grants, which are for undergraduate students with high levels of financial need, were wrongfully disbursed, it said.

Maryland education officials did not comment when asked about the financial impact of such scams in this state.

To combat the fraud, the department reinstated certain safeguards, such as flagging suspicious financial aid applicants and automated screening of student aid records.

“Ghost” or “spam” students often use stolen identities to apply for financial aid and community classes. Others apply legitimately, but only for the purpose of getting a financial aid refund, according to Tamika Bybee, associate vice president for enrollment services at Howard Community College.

Now, because Howard’s spam students know they need to participate to get refunds, they are using AI also to submit assignments and participate in class discussion posts.

“That’s another aspect that has now made it extremely difficult to pinpoint whether these are spam or fraudulent students,”  Bybee said. “They’re becoming very savvy.”

AI for bad, and for good

AI can also help stop fraud. While the fraudsters are using it to fill out applications, Lang said CCBC uses it to find patterns or discrepancies in suspicious applications.

CCBC’s new application platform can track and assess the time taken on each question, as well as where students stop the application. After submission, each application is carefully reviewed by software for legitimacy before proceeding to the admissions process. The software flags suspicious applications before passing them to staff for manual review and requesting additional information from the student.

The school receives over 20,000 applications every year, but the increased scrutiny and review process largely hasn’t delayed legitimate applicants’ admissions, Lang said.

“That is certainly something that our president wanted to make sure did not happen,” he said.

Because the software filters through applications quickly, a student whose application was judged as suspicious might not even know they were delayed, Lang said.

“Community colleges, because we’re an open door, … it’s a less intensive admissions process. Whereas … at a four-year [college or university], it’s a multi-month process. So we’re much shorter than anything a four-year would experience,” Lang said.

Howard Community College sees between 15,000 and 20,000 applications yearly, according to Bybee. Before the school’s spam control was implemented, up to a third of the applications it received were ghost students, she said.

A dedicated spam team now hand-reviews each application, Bybee said. The spam team catches red flags such as multiple applications with the same phone number or fake IDs submitted as identity verification. The team can review and clear an application within three days; however, in-person applicants and enrollees can be done in one day.

Those who are caught trying to fool the school get dropped from all their classes and have to face federal regulations, she said. If aid has already been disbursed, the school has to return the aid to the government. If the spam student has alreadygotten their refund, that contributes to the school’s debt.

New security measures coming

An official from Anne Arundel Community College agreed that “emerging technologies continue to introduce new and evolving risks.”

“Anne Arundel Community College remains proactive and adaptable, implementing strategies that evolve with the threat landscape,” said Felicia Patterson, vice president for Learner Support Services at Anne Arundel Community College.

Nationwide applicants for summer programs saw some heightened security measures, but a new, permanent screening process is coming in the fall with the aim of ending identity fraud in financial aid, the Department of Education said in June.

Although Lang did not have details yet on what that process would look like, he said he expects the federal government will request more identity verifications with additional steps, as well as more data collection from the school.

The processing system behind the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, selects applications that require additional verification, according to the Federal Student Aid office’s website. Schools can separately elect to verify information on a student’s aid application.

To verify their identities, applicants must show a school representative valid, government-issued photo identification in person, via live video conference or through notarized documentation.

Both CCBC and Howard Community College are already requiring flagged applicants to come in person or on a video call with government-issued identification, according to Lang and Bybee. .

Have a news tip? Contact Racquel Bazos at rbazos@baltsun.com, 443-813-0770 or on X as @rzbworks.