House Republicans Delivered Funding to Help Combat Enrollment Fraud

St. Paul, MN—House Republican Leader Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, issued the following statement in response to a KSTP report on enrollment fraud, where fraudsters use stolen identities to collect taxpayer-funded student aid. Normandale Community College told KSTP it has processed roughly 29,000 fraudulent or potentially fraudulent applications, with suspected fraud accounting for as many as 42% of applications at one point:

“Whether it was complicity, incompetence, or indifference, Minnesota Democrats allowed fraud to explode to staggering levels, costing taxpayers billions and devastating the lives of some of our state’s most vulnerable people,” said Niska.

Rep. Bidal Duran, R-Bemidji, authored the provision, which House Republicans successfully fought to include in the 2026 Higher Education Bill, to provide $3 million over the next two years for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities to implement automated identity verification and combat enrollment fraud.

Niska continued, “It was not until House Republicans broke the Democrats’ trifecta that we were finally able to begin restoring accountability and stop the fraud. That included House Republicans fighting for and delivering funding this year to help colleges build and maintain enrollment fraud and identity verification systems—an important step in slamming the door shut on this type of fraud from happening in Minnesota.”