Southeastern Michigan University featured video montages of happy graduates and glossy photographs of smiling students on its website. It boasted of “budget-friendly” tuition programs with incredibly short timelines, including a “self-paced” bachelor’s degree that could be completed in as little as two years for just $31,680.
State authorities this month shut down the bogus university, whose AI-generated website had spoofed the web design of Eastern Michigan University, a real public campus in Ypsilanti.
“If something seems suspicious or too good to be true, do your homework before sharing any personal information,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement.
Southeastern Michigan is part of a surge in fake college websites that have used artificial intelligence to generate hours of content over the past two years, taking enrollment scams to the next level as they target cash-strapped applicants.
A recent investigation by the trade publication Inside Higher Ed tallied 40 fake university websites with AI glitches such as repetitive language, blurry image backgrounds and chatbot-driven exaggerations. Fake sites include “Baltimore Metropolitan University,” “California Lake University” and “Western University of Miami.”
“And many of these fake colleges also have a presence on social media sites, including LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook,” Josh Moody and Kathryn Palmer wrote in an Aug. 14 report for Inside Higher Ed.
Cybersecurity experts told The Washington Times that dozens of other fake sites mimic real universities, offering admissions and cost shortcuts for well-known programs.
“While many existed before the rise of generative AI, the last couple of years have seen a significant rise in the quantity and quality of the sites,” said Al Pascual, CEO of Scamnetic, a Florida-based digital security company.
The websites target first-generation students, international applicants and poor adults with weak academic backgrounds who browse bottom-ranked colleges for online bargain degrees.
“There are no official numbers because most people do not report them, but anecdotal evidence suggests that fraud happens in different ways, like applying for Pell grants with fictitious student numbers,” said Rahul Telang, a professor of information systems at Carnegie Mellon University.
The Times has reached out to the FBI and the Department of Education for comment.
While no institution has tallied the financial losses from AI-generated college scams, experts point to warning signs in broader cybersecurity trends.
The Consumer Federation of America estimates that Americans lost $16 billion to online scams in 2024, with AI-assisted fraud driving a 33% increase in losses over the previous year.
“Even if these fake universities captured a small slice of that total, we are still talking about millions siphoned from students and families,” said Robert Walker, director of community initiatives at University of Advancing Technology, a private for-profit school in Arizona.
AI diploma mills
Known as diploma mill scams, teams of fraudulent advertisers and copywriters have used fake colleges and degrees for decades to bilk unsuspecting students out of their savings.
Generative AI has accelerated the scale and sophistication of the sites over the past two years. Now, a single scammer can buy social media advertising and launch a fake college website with chatbots almost instantaneously.
Cybercriminals can then string victims along to collect multiple application fees, enrollment deposits and tuition payments without offering classes. In some cases, they generate an AI-based “sample lecture” to keep the victims paying.
“AI has supercharged diploma mills,” said Angelica Gianchandani, a marketing instructor at New York University. “Fraudsters can spin up convincing fake colleges with logos, faculty bios, and even virtual tours all generated by algorithms.”
The Better Business Bureau has tracked several of the scams. They include a Florida victim who reported in September that “Sire University” solicited fake tax-deductible donations by email and posted fake job listings on the employment website LinkedIn.
“Don’t believe everything you see online,” Melanie McGovern, a spokeswoman for the International Association of Better Business Bureaus Inc., said in an email. “Scammers count on you to take them at their word without verifying their identity.”
Some of the faux colleges include links to sites for phony accreditors that claim to have certified them.
In an Aug. 15 complaint to the Better Business Bureau, one Pennsylvania victim tricked into making an online payment to Southeastern Michigan noted that “they also have accrediting bodies that are a scam.”
“The scam usually works by tricking students into signing up for their degree on one of these fraudulent websites,” said Aimee Simpson of Huntress, a cybersecurity company founded by former National Security Agency employees. “Someone impersonating a staff member from the university will contact the applicant about paying their fees, often telling them they’ve received a scholarship, a big discount or something like that to get quick payment of the remaining portion.”
Dylan DeAnda, a vice president at Doppel, which specializes in AI-driven threats, said organized gangs in West Africa and Eastern Europe also use the websites to steal the identities of victims and apply for federal student aid in their names.
“Doppel is currently tracking hundreds of active domains and social accounts abusing higher education brands,” Mr. DeAnda said. “While losses are difficult to quantify, we have observed scams extracting hundreds of thousands of dollars through tuition fraud, application fees, credential theft and fake cryptocurrency donations.”
Steve Morris, founder and CEO of the digital marketing company Newmedia.com, said that new AI website builder programs over the past year have helped some scammers build networks of fake colleges and accreditors in under an hour.
“We’ve seen bursts of campaigns where the scammers publish 40-plus interlinked ‘university’ sites in a weekend, all of them using the same copy and layout,” Mr. Morris said. “It’s clear no humans wrote them; they just pushed the same source through some generative AI content pipeline.”
Spotting fakes
Consumer safety advocates say the fast-evolving nature of AI has made it harder for people to spot fake colleges than in the past.
Some sites have only slight variations in their names or web addresses from real schools, requiring two or three looks to notice. Others offer doctored Google Maps imagery tied to their fictitious addresses.
“Before AI, scam websites were often easy to spot because of grammar and low-quality imaging, but now everything looks nearly perfect,” said Kristin Lewis, chief product officer at Aura, a Boston software company that protects families from digital threats. “Luckily, there are a few things you can do … to make sure it’s real and safe.”
She noted that scammers can’t fake the “.edu” domain. Only accredited U.S. colleges can add it to the end of their web addresses.
Other ways to verify a college website include searching the Department of Education’s public database of accredited institutions and conducting a web search to confirm the identities of listed faculty members.
“You can’t tell a fake website from a real one, and there’s no magic app to download that can keep you safe from these types of scams,” said Joshua McKenty, a former NASA chief cloud architect and CEO of Polyguard.ai, a cybersecurity firm specializing in AI deepfakes. “So start from a .gov website and go from there.”
According to digital fraud experts, people encountering a fake college website should report it to the Federal Trade Commission or their state consumer protection office.
“Don’t engage,” said Dave Meister, a Utah-based cybersecurity expert for Check Point Software. “If it’s spoofing a real college, notify that institution directly. And if you’ve already shared personal info, monitor your credit and consider freezing it.”
