$10 million is worth preventing.

Another interesting percentage, "In the 2024 calendar year, the chancellor’s office estimates that 31.4% of its college applications were fraudulent"

The article talks about ID.me MFA and updates to the sites and processes, but nothing about verifying the ID of the applicant.

The fraudsters are using AI to complete coursework and engage in some communication to help pad out the ID, but in the end there must be a fake/stolen SSN in play, and that can be dealt with.

Citations needed.

Engineers boost GDP, lawyers decrease it. That's not one of the reasons there isn't Federal student aid for law school, but it should be.

I suspect that you're on to something there. This could really only be happening if they aren't verifying the IDs of the incoming students, and the only reasons I can think of to not do so are laziness/incompetence or a policy decision from on-high. If it's the former, then there is an easy fix that they would be implementing now. Which I'd assume would be prominently mentioned in the article, so...

Oh no, not at all. The aid is very often more than the cost of courses and material, on the assumption that the student will need food, gas, a computer, etc. And, often provided as a lump sum at the beginning of the semester. Or at least that was the case 20 years ago.

Not handing over a lump sum at the offset, but crediting the registration and book fees first, then handing over the rest in person may help. As would identity verification plus requiring "Real ID", as they have to be using stolen or faked identities to do this. Which may be why this is happening in California.

Sadly, there is a simple workaround for that. A fake ID and a couple of hours on site. One person could spend a few days going around to different campuses and register a dozen fake students for aid. It's a simple short-con.

Well, since the problem is financial assistance fraud, wouldn't it make more sense to require in-person applications for aid?

Though for all we know, someone with a stack of fake IDs is going in-person to register for classes and aid already. In which case the only way to prevent fraud is for financial aid to not hand over any money until a student has shown up at class. Or maybe better, once they go to the register at the campus bookstore with a stack of textbooks.

Well, "equity" is opposed to equality, so that's a bit of a problem.

No, they might own the plants in the end, it depends on the details of the off-take agreement. And why are you discounting the risk of losing their investment? It's a very big number.

Why wouldn't they? They forecasted their needs, ran the numbers, and decided this was the most cost-effective solution.

I don't care who is building them and I don't understand why anyone cares. Past that I agree entirely and can't fathom the complaints I see here. They put a load on the grid, and that's bad. They take the load off the grid, and that's bad. Is there any point in dealing with people who think everything is bad?

Well, when you build your own NPP you can use the power for whatever you want.

How is it a problem for Google to take its data centers off the main grid, thus freeing up power to make sure lights don't "flicker all over the country because the datacentres are using up all available power"? Why is it a problem for a company to build its own power generation capacity? Do you have a complaint about companies building solar farms to power their facilities? If a WalMart puts solar panels on the roof, is that a bad thing they should have paid for through electric bills instead?

And what kind of narcissistic turd thinks they "lost out" because someone built something for their own use? That's like taking it as a personal slight if your neighbor puts in a pool. That's not a case for government intervention; it's a personality disorder.

If they don't have the money, how and why are they spending it? Do you think their partner didn't make sure the money was there?