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It was an unusual question coming from a police officer. Heather Brady was napping at home in San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon when the officer knocked on her door to ask: Had she applied to Arizona Western College?She had not, and as the officer suspected, somebody else had applied to Arizona community colleges in her name to scam the government into paying out financial aid money.When she checked her student loan servicer account, Brady saw the scammers hadn’t stopped there. A loan for over $9,000 had been paid out in her namebut to another personfor coursework at a California college.“I just can’t imagine how many people this is happening to that have no idea,” Brady said.The rise of artificial intelligence and the popularity of online classes have led to an explosion of financial aid fraud. Fake college enrollments have been surging as crime rings deploy “ghost students”chatbots that join online classrooms and stay just long enough to collect a financial aid check.In some cases, professors discover almost no one in their class is real. Students get locked out of the classes they need to graduate as bots push courses over their enrollment limits. And victims of identity theft who discover loans fraudulently taken out in their names must go through months of calling colleges, the Federal Student Aid office and loan servicers to try to get the debt erased.On Friday, the U.S. Education Department introduced a temporary rule requiring students to show colleges a government-issued ID to prove their identity. It will apply only to first-time applicants for federal student aid for the summer term, affecting some 125,000 borrowers. The agency said it is developing more advanced screening for the fall.“The rate of fraud through stolen identities has reached a level that imperils the federal student aid program,” the department said in its guidance to colleges. Public colleges have lost millions of dollars to fraud An Associated Press analysis of fraud reports obtained through a public records request shows California colleges in 2024 reported 1.2 million fraudulent applications, which resulted in 223,000 suspected fake enrollments. Other states are affected by the same problem, but with 116 community colleges, California is a particularly large target.Criminals stole at least $11.1 million in federal, state and local financial aid from California community colleges last year that could not be recovered, according to the reports.Colleges typically receive a portion of the loans intended for tuition, with the balance going directly to students for other expenses. Community colleges are targeted in part because their lower tuition means larger percentages of grants and loans go to borrowers.Scammers frequently use AI chatbots to carry out the fraud, targeting courses that are online and allow students to watch lectures and complete coursework on their own time.In January, Wayne Chaw started getting emails about a class he never signed up for at De Anza Community College, where he had taken coding classes a decade earlier. Identity thieves had obtained his Social Security number and collected $1,395 in financial aid in his name.The energy management class required students to submit a homework assignment to prove they were real. But someone wrote submissions impersonating Chaw, likely using a chatbot.“This person is typing as me, saying my first and last name. . . . It’s very freaky when I saw that,” said Chaw.The fraud involved a grant, not loans, so Chaw himself did not lose money. He called the Social Security Administration to report the identity theft, but after five hours on hold, he never got through to a person.As the Trump administration moves to dismantle the Education Department, federal cuts may make it harder to catch criminals and help victims of identity theft. In March, the Trump administration fired more than 300 people from the Federal Student Aid office, and the department’s Office of Inspector General, which investigates fraud, has lost more than 20% of its staff through attrition and retirements since October.“I’m just nervous that I’m going to be stuck with this,” Brady said. “The agency is going to be so broken down and disintegrated that I won’t be able to do anything, and I’m just going to be stuck with those $9,000” in loans.Criminal cases around the country offer a glimpse of the schemes’ pervasiveness.In the past year, investigators indicted a man accused of leading a Texas fraud ring that used stolen identities to pursue $1.5 million in student aid. Another person in Texas pleaded guilty to using the names of prison inmates to apply for over $650,000 in student aid at colleges across the South and Southwest. And a person in New York recently pleaded guilty to a $450,000 student aid scam that lasted a decade.Identify fraud victims who never attended college are hit with student debtBrittnee Nelson of Shreveport, Louisiana, was bringing her daughter to day care two years ago when she received a notification that her credit score had dropped 27 points.Loans had been taken out in her name for colleges in California and Louisiana, she discovered. She canceled one before it was paid out, but it was too late to stop a loan of over $5,000 for Delgado Community College in New Orleans.Nelson runs her own housecleaning business and didn’t go to college. She already was signed up for identity theft protection and carefully monitored her credit. Still, her debt almost went into collections before the loan was put in forbearance. She recently got the loans taken off her record after two years of effort.“It’s like if someone came into your house and robbed you,” she said.The federal government’s efforts to verify borrowers’ identity could help, she said.“If they can make these hurdles a little bit harder and have these verifications more provable, I think that’s really, really, really going to protect people in the long run,” she said.Delgado spokesperson Barbara Waiters said responsibility for approving loans ultimately lies with federal agencies.“This is an unfortunate and serious matter, but it is not the direct or indirect result of Delgado’s internal processes,” Waiters said.In San Francisco, the loans taken out in Brady’s name are in a grace period, but still on the books. That has not been her only challenge. A few months ago, she was laid off from her job and decided to sign up for a class at City College San Francisco to help her career. But all the classes were full.After a few weeks, Brady finally was able to sign up for a class. The professor apologized for the delay in spots opening up: The college has been struggling with fraudulent applications. The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Sharon Lurye, AP Education Writer
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E-Commerce
Barely anything that truly makes me pause on the internet is shot using traditional, modern camera tech. I appreciate the grainy texture of film photos and the fast, smooth zoom of a shitty camcorder, but more than anything, I love an artist who has the guts to throw something completely different at their audience. I love those viral Marc Jacobs videos featuring Lil Uzi Vert and FKA Twigs, and Jack Harlows Hello Miss Johnson videoboth shot by Yulya Shadrinky using what looks like security cameras. I am amused by Ben Nunezs art project in which he wore a police bodycam for a full year and uploaded each day to a public YouTube channel. I love this BITTER000000 video produced by Liv Solomon thats shot using a pair of spy glasses. They make the tech that usually makes me uncomfortable feel like an opportunity for creative expression.When two years ago, Zuck announced the Ray-Ban Meta partnership, most people I know were disturbeda creepy tech nerd discreetly recording you in public was the first and only use case that popped into our heads. It also felt like a step further into the dystopian future that we dreada self-imposed surveillance state, the main character epidemic, and the online and offline worlds slowly but surely melting together. There is nothing that kills my vibe more than turning my head in a $40 workout class and getting a glimpse of someones phone propped up in the corner or watching a teenager in front of me at a concert record the entire thing and plop it on their Snap story.Yulya Shadrinky for Marc Jacobs, Ben Nunezs Bodycam, and Liv Solomons BITTER000000 video for OfficeLately through, Ive been hearing from the artists and creatives I like that they are curious about the smart glasses. Some of them even quietly asked Meta for a free pair to play around with, and that doesnt include the ones who got paid to wear them during fashion week. While most of them couldnt care less about the AI assistant part, they are intrigued by the built-in cameraif only its high resolution didnt make it so commercial. I didnt like the way the footage looks, Liv Solomon tells me about her experience trying out the Meta glasses. It just kind of mimics an iPhone camera and that, to me, feels redundant. At that point, you can just hold up an iPhone and take a video.Nadia Lee Cohen wearing Meta glasses to Copernis show and Alexander Roth repping them on a JPG brand tripFor that BITER000000 project that she produced for Office magazine, she went with a random pair of cheap camera glasses from Amazon. It was a combination of wanting to capture the raw Uncut Gems vibe of New York Citys Diamond District and show the intimate process of making jewelryboth of which arent outsider-friendlythat led her to the idea of using spy glasses in the first place, she explains. Besides the moody texture that creates an interesting visual aesthetic, they also added layers of meaning to the project. There is something about sneaking in a recording device into a place full of hidden cameras, documenting the entirety of the creative process, and the videographer passing over the controls to her subjects that turns up the thrill and the level of trust required to pull the project off.Unlike an iPhone or a proper modern camera that become invisible in the final cut, surveillance tech is a character of its own that has the power to turn the most mundane happenings into a cultural statement or at the very least, make the final piece technically impressive. Eugene Kotlyarenkos latest movie The Code is a great example of how a project can benefit from it. Patched up from the footage captured on more than 70 cameras, including security cameras, spy glasses, and 360° camera mounted on a head strap, it follows a troubled young couple, Celine and Jay, caught up in a downward spiral of mutual surveillance. When Jay suspects that Celines urge to make a COVID documentary is actually a ploy to damage his reputation, he gets a bunch of hidden cameras to catch her saying or doing something horrible as a form of insurance. Because of the films amateur production style, abundance of POV footage, and characters frequently looking and speaking directly into the camera, the viewer ends up becoming the third main character of the film. Halfway through, it becomes hard to draw the line between Jays and Celines personalities and performancesan allegory for how our online and office behaviors are shaped by the casual panopticon weve collectively built. Throughout the film, the characters set up so many uncomfortable, vulnerable, and invasive scenes that its unclear who wants to stick around morethe viewer who is curious to see how this train wreck of a relationship ends, or the characters who need the viewer to see their side in the anxious anticipation of the finale.Unlike other art and creative projects of this genre, like Harmony Korines Baby Invasion, Black Mirror, or even Kotlyarenkos earlier movie Spree, The Code not only provides the audience with an experience and food for thought, it tells a real story. It takes the subject of mutual surveillance and the social dynamics that unravel around it, out of that video game, sci-fi context that makes these projects feel like an exaggerated portrayal of a distant dystopian future that the viewer brushes off the second the credits roll. It feels like we are only scratching the surface in terms of how the voluntary wish to sacrifice the last remnants of privacy in search of safety, intimacy, attention, and self-expression has impacted our social lives, careers, and daily routines. These stories are current and so painfully trivial that perhaps, using alt camera tech to capture them might be the best way to communicate how important and nuanced they are without turning them into a violent, disturbig spectacle.But even on a more casual level, its an opportunity to have fun, challenge yourself creatively, and shake up the dynamics within existing cultural institutions. Jacquemus threw off its camera-ready fashion show guests with a hidden camera placed in an elevatorthe response was so positive that Tory Burch copied the concept a few days later. Moni Haworth shot this surveillance camera-esque cover story for The Face where Yeat got to play a weird blurry character rather than be a human billboard for Chrome Hearts and Acne Studios. Jason Stewart threw on a bodycam-looking setup to record himself cooking green wings for a subtle comedic effect. Although cumulatively, all of these innocent projects still prompt a larger discussion about the way public attention has shifted away from the main act towards backstage, how the power dynamics between the audience, the talent, and the crew constantly fluctuate, and whether we are getting fed up with authenticity.Yeat for The Face magazine shot by Moni HaworthIts a matter of time before we see people who do have an interesting approach get their hands on these [smart glasses], Liv tells me as she draws a comparison to Pavel Golik and Juergen Teller figuring out a way to shoot compelling editorial content on an iPhone. Its a matter of giving someone, like Nadia Lee Cohen who has already worn smart glasses to a Coperni show, a check and an empty brief for them to catch on. Its a matter of throwing an atmospheric house track over one more Uncut Gem-style video for me personally to order a pair of bootleg camera glasses on Amazon. Where does this urge to experiment and reclaim the tech that frightens us in an act of empowering exhibitionism take the casual panopticon and every conversation that surrounds it? That, I am not so sure of.Viktoriia Vasileva is a brand strategist, researcher, and writer. Shes worked with brands, like Perfectly Imperfect and Partiful, and her expertise has appeared in Vogue Spain, Inc., and South Shine Morning Post. This essay first appeared in her newsletter about creativity, brands, and business Viks Busy Corner.
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E-Commerce
If you’re a member of the Class of 2025, youre entering a workplace unlike any before you. While your predecessors had to adapt to email, social media, and cloud computing, you’re stepping directly into the age of artificial intelligence. This isn’t just another technological shift. It’s a fundamental reimagining of how work gets done. Instead of being a victim of disruption, you have the opportunity to position yourself as an architect of an AI-powered future. Several recent studies indicate that companies effectively integrating AI achieve productivity gains of up to 40%. However, many organizations struggle with implementation, not because the technology isn’t ready, but because of a lack of a workforce skilled in leveraging it. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for you as a digital native who views AI not as a threat to manage but as a tool to master. Focus on Partnership, Not Replacement Start by recognizing that AI isn’t coming for jobs per se. It’s automating a wide range of tasks. While AI will automate certain functions, it will simultaneously create new opportunities and roles. Instead of fearing AI as a job-stealing technology, you should see it as a valuable partner that can help you work smarter and more efficiently. To succeed, you need to identify routine tasks within your role that AI can handle. This could include drafting initial reports, analyzing data patterns, or researching industry trends. Your goal is to employ AI to eliminate time-consuming work and invest that saved time in high-value activities like strategic thinking, relationship building, and creative problem-solving. As soon as you start your new job, audit your responsibilities and ask: “Which of these could be automated or AI-assisted?” Then experiment with the available tools in your organization. Most importantly, communicate your AI-enhanced productivity to your supervisorsthey need to see that you’re not just working faster, but delivering higher-quality strategic thinking. Invest in Continuous Upskilling Then you need to commit to continuous learning. The half-life of technical skills is shrinking rapidly. What you learned in your senior year may already be outdated by the time you’ve been in your first job for just a few months. As futurist Alvin Toffler predicted decades ago, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” You’re living this reality in real-time. You must treat your first job as an extension of your education, not its conclusion. The most effective approach is to create a structured learning plan: Dedicate time weekly to exploring new AI tools relevant to your industry, enroll in online courses that build both technical understanding and business application skills, and seek out internal projects where you can experiment with AI solutions. Don’t wait for your company to provide AI trainingtake the initiative. Join professional associations focused on AI in your field, attend virtual conferences, and connect with other professionals who are successfully integrating AI into their work. Document your experiments and insights; this portfolio of AI experience becomes increasingly valuable as your career progresses. Become the Translator Perhaps the most valuable role you can play is serving as an interpreter between AI capabilities and business needs. Many senior executives understand AI’s potential in theory but struggle to see practical applications for their specific challenges. Meanwhile, technical teams can build sophisticated AI systems but may miss crucial business context. You’re uniquely positioned to bridge this gap. To capitalize on this opportunity, develop the skill of translating technical capabilities into business language. When you encounter AI tools or capabilities, practice explaining them in terms of business outcomes: cost savings, revenue generation, risk reduction, or customer satisfaction improvements. Position yourself as someone who can identify automation opportunities that others might overlook. Look for repetitive processes, data analysis tasks, or pattern recognition challenges within your organization. Then propose AI solutions in terms that resonate with decision-makers: “This could save us X hours per week” or “This could improve accuracy by Y percent.” Your ability to recognize and communicate these opportunities makes you indispensable. Embrace Your Ethical Responsibility With great power comes great responsibility, and you’re inheriting both. As AI becomes more prevalent, your generation of business leaders will shape how it’s deployed. This isn’t just about efficiency gainsit’s about ensuring AI serves humanity rather than replacing it. You should already be grappling with these ethical dimensions. Make yourself valuable by understanding both the opportunities and risks of AI implementation. Learn to ask the right questions: How might this AI system impact different user groups? What data privacy concerns does this raise? How do we ensure transparency in automated decision-making? Develop expertise in responsible AI practices. This means understanding bias detection, fairness metrics, and explainability requirements. Companies increasingly need employees who can implement AI solutions that meet not just performance criteria, but also ethical and regulatory standards. Position yourself as someone who thinks holistically about AI deployment. Amplify Innovation Through AI Your most exciting opportunities lie not in using AI to perform existing work more quickly, but in envisioning entirely new possibilities. You’re not burdened by “that’s not how we’ve always done it” thinking, which makes you a natural innovator in this space. Consider AI-powered customer service that provides genuinely helpful support, or predictive analytics that identify market opportunities before competitors spot them. The applications are limited only by your imagination and execution. You should see AI not just as a productivity tool, but as a creativity amplifier. Leverage Your Fast Fish Advantage Klaus Schwab’s warning rings especially true for your generation: “In the new world, it is not the big fish which eats the small fish, it’s the fast fish which eats the slow fish.” You have a natural speed advantageyou’re not slowed down by outdated assumptions or resistance to change. Your success will depend on combining velocity with wisdom, embracing AI’s potential while thoughtfully considering its implications. You’re the one asking not just “what can AI do?” but “what should AI do?” Grasp the Opportunity As artificial intelligence reshapes the business landscape, you stand at a unique inflection point. You can choose to be a passive observer of technological change, or an active architect of an AI-powered future that benefits everyone. The early evidence suggests your generation is choosing the latterand that choice will define not just your career, but the future of work itself. The AI revolution isn’t comingfor you, it’s already here. The question isn’t whether you’ll adapt; it’s how quickly you’ll lead. Your generation doesn’t just have the opportunity to ride this wave of changeyou have the responsibility to shape it. The time to act is now.
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E-Commerce
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