No Aid for Ghost Students Act of 2026

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Speaker, in our Committee on Education and Workforce, as in so many other committees, we have discovered rampant fraud, in this case, in Federal financial aid programs as ghost students have been submitting applications for aid, getting the aid, and then the money just disappears because there is no real student.

Imagine that, Mr. Speaker.

The first lesson we can take out of this is the programs here now are not going to get rid of it. Anybody who thinks we are going to institute a Federal program and there is not going to be fraud in it is nuts. This is one more example of out-of-control things. We believe we found $350 million of ghost student fraud uncovered since 2019.

In any event, Burgess Owens has the answer here. In part, we are going to work to identify these fraudsters before the money goes out the door. If we identify them before the money goes out the door, we will dramatically decrease the amount of money that disappears.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Burgess Owens for doing this, and I hope the rest of the body will remember what was done with these Federal aid programs. Again and again, it doesn't go for the purposes designed. It goes to fraudsters who take advantage of the situation.

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