When Bots Go to College: How AI-Generated Identities Are Disrupting Higher Education

Recently, CalMatters published a now viral headline: “Fake student aid: California colleges detect more fraudsters stealing millions.”

According to the article, up to one-third of community college applications in California, the largest community college system in the nation, are likely fraudulent. As a result, tens of millions of dollars in financial aid are being stolen by bad actors hiding behind bots: fake identities and AI-generated personas that are increasingly difficult for colleges to detect, even with sophisticated software to vet applicants. 

When classes begin, one or several “students” in an online classroom may not exist at all. So, what’s driving this trend?

How Bots Skew Enrollment Campaigns

Beyond outright financial aid fraud, social media and other online spaces are increasingly dominated by bots. Bots use technology to mimic human conversations and online engagement without anyone actually behind the keyboard. And now, with AI, bots have become even easier to create and scale. 

While precise counts of bot activity are hard to quantify, a recent study published in Nature found that bots generate roughly 20% of social media content. That number can spike to nearly 50% during major events like the U.S. Presidential election.

The proliferation of bots makes it increasingly difficult for colleges to separate signal from noise. After all, when colleges are running enrollment marketing campaigns that depend on platforms like Facebook or Instagram to reach their target audiences, they are at the mercy of how Meta handles its bot problem. As an advertising platform, Facebook or Instagram has little incentive to remove bots that bolster the illusion that far more potential students are seeing and engaging with a college’s advertising campaign than may be the reality. Perhaps even more concerning: Meta’s plan for Facebook and other platforms is to double down on bots with AI-generated avatars becoming fake profiles that are virtually indistinguishable from real users. 

With colleges under enormous pressure to grow enrollment and distribute their aid based on full-time equivalent headcount, bots aren't just skewing the efficacy of marketing campaigns, they’re also threatening colleges’ bottom lines.

The Limits of Demographics and Lookalike Audiences

But the issue isn’t just bots and AI. It starts upstream with the marketing campaigns themselves. Social media platforms often rely on “lookalike” audiences: people who might be a good fit, developed from the profile of currently enrolled students. But demographics alone can’t tell you who truly intends to go back to school. 

That’s because, unlike shopping for groceries or shoes, deciding to enroll in college is a complex, life-changing decision. Successful marketing campaigns must go beyond demographics. They need sophisticated modeling that relies on comprehensive data and advanced machine learning algorithms to predict an “intent score”, the probability that a person intends to enroll in education or training.

That’s the difference between a campaign that drives real outcomes and one that wastes resources on lookalike audiences. Bots can mimic a profile and find their way into your enrollment pipeline. But they can’t fake genuine intent to enroll and attend college.

Authentic Engagement, Measurable Success

That’s why, at CollegeAPP, we don’t just target demographics. We model intent.

We build our campaigns around one core idea: focus on the people actively considering college, regardless of whether they’ve taken formal steps. That might be someone who recently moved into your area and is likely to respond 'yes' to the survey question about planning to enroll in education or training within the next two years. These are real people, not personas or bots, and CollegeAPP knows how to help you find them.

We know this works because we are running successful campaigns with colleges across the country. Take Michigan, for example. In 2023, the state lowered the age threshold for its Reconnect program, making 350,000 more adults eligible for free community college. But when the policy was launched, fewer students signed up than expected. The usual outreach wasn’t cutting it, because unlike tuition-free policies that are broadly accessible, this one targeted 21-24 year olds who were previously ineligible. Many in the newly eligible group didn’t even know that the policy had changed. 

Michigan recognized they had a gap in communication and reached out to CollegeAPP to help. We launched a five-month campaign, using proprietary intent-based models to find young adults actively considering returning to college. We didn’t just run ads — we tailored the messaging to fit their motivations, reviewed performance weekly, and adjusted strategy in real time.

The results? More than 12,000 sign-ups for Michigan Reconnect, and nearly 10,000 students have actually enrolled in college. These numbers are still rising as the campaigns conclude and more data is collected. We’re already seeing engagement rates 15–20x above industry norms and costs per click at half the national average. The data from real students signing up for college shows that these are not just clicks, but conversions. The campaign is not just about reach, but results. That’s the power of intent-based marketing in higher education. 

Smarter Outreach Starts with Intent

What this “bot moment” demands isn’t just better fraud detection, it's a better upstream design.

That’s what intent-based outreach provides. It builds infrastructure around actual human behavior. It reduces reliance on vanity metrics and reallocates resources to those who are most likely to take the next step.

It’s not just more effective, it’s more equitable. It’s more likely to help the students who need it most. In an age of bots in seats and AI-generated Facebook profiles, understanding intent is your competitive advantage. CollegeAPP was built to meet this moment — not by chasing clicks, but by helping colleges find the people who are truly ready to enroll.

If you’re looking to reach real students — and avoid the fake ones — we’d love to talk.

Visit yourcollegeapp.com or drop us a note.