Editorial: How bad was the financial aid fraud at California’s community colleges? We still don’t know, and that’s a problem

It’s not the fault of California’s community colleges that fraudsters filed thousands of fake student applications, many through bots, early during the pandemic. At least 65,000 of them included documents requesting financial aid as federal relief money flowed to colleges. At the time, campuses were closed, classes were held online, and administrators were hectically trying to keep the colleges operating.

Once the deception was uncovered last