Man sues after getting a $6,000 student loan bill for a college loan he says wasn’t his

It's Blossom · Jul 20, 2026 22:15 · 4 min read

Kenneth Snyder never enrolled at a college in New Jersey, yet a bill for $5,971.88 landed in his mailbox demanding otherwise. The notice, dated June 24, 2026, set a monthly payment of $64.10 with a due date of July 4. Snyder, who lives in Kent, Washington, says the debt traces back to a stranger who used his Social Security number, name, and date o...

Kenneth Snyder never enrolled at a college in New Jersey, yet a bill for $5,971.88 landed in his mailbox demanding otherwise. The notice, dated June 24, 2026, set a monthly payment of $64.10 with a due date of July 4. Snyder, who lives in Kent, Washington, says the debt traces back to a stranger who used his Social Security number, name, and date of birth to enroll at Sussex County Community College in March 2024. Snyder discovered the fraudulent account months after it first appeared on his credit report, according to a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. He filed identity theft reports with the Federal Trade Commission, local police in Kent, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, and police in Newton, New Jersey. Despite handing over box after box of paperwork, the Department of Education never wiped the debt from his name. According to court documents, someone electronically signed a Master Promissory Note in Snyder's name for a $5,500 federal student loan and collected a $7,000 Pell Grant to attend Sussex County Community College. Snyder insists the signature, the enrollment, and the loan were never his doing. Nelnet, the Education Department's loan servicer, confirmed his Social Security number and birth date matched the account, but the listed address, phone number, and email belonged to a stranger he'd never met.

A Paper Trail That Went Nowhere

Snyder didn't stay quiet. He disputed the loan with credit reporting agencies, completed a Federal Trade Commission identity theft affidavit, and mailed Nelnet a transcript from Sussex County Community College stamped "FAKE ACCOUNT." He even submitted proof he attended a different school entirely: Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. Still, the Education Department denied his October 2025 application to discharge the debt and asked for more documentation. Snyder responded with a seven-page affidavit backed by his birth certificate, W-2 forms, a mortgage statement, a Puget Sound Energy bill, and DoorDash receipts delivered to his Kent home. He added his Massachusetts high school diploma for good measure. The agency never issued a final decision. On June 24, 2026, a bill arrived anyway, the same balance that had followed him for more than a year. With no resolution in sight, Snyder filed his lawsuit against Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Richard Lucas, chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid. The complaint asks the court to erase the debt and award damages for the ordeal. His case is far from isolated. Newton police told him the scheme touched multiple victims, and the fraud traced back further than anyone at first realized.

The Scam Behind the Scam

Court documents describe the scheme as "dropout fraud," a pattern where a criminal enrolls in college with a stolen identity, collects the loan and grant money, then vanishes before classes even start. Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor at the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek that once the fraudster withdraws, the school refunds the loan, leaving the identity theft victim holding a debt for an education they never received. The college had reported similar incidents since 2022. Kevin Thompson, CEO of 9i Capital Group and host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek that schools and the Education Department need far stronger identity verification before releasing loans or grants. He noted that tracing stolen money becomes nearly impossible once it enters the financial system, especially as digital payment networks make funds easy to move and hard to recover. For victims like Snyder, that difficulty means years of unresolved paperwork. Beene estimates student loan fraud nationwide runs into the billions of dollars, and cases like Snyder's are becoming more common, not rarer. Most victims only learn about the fraud once a loan shows up on a credit report or a bill lands in their mailbox, exactly what happened to Snyder. Lawmakers in Washington, D.C. have taken notice, and a bill addressing the problem was already moving through Congress.

Washington Responds, But Not Fast Enough for Snyder

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed the No Aid for Ghost Students Act of 2026, aimed at stopping criminals from using stolen identities to collect financial aid. The bill would require the Education Department to screen every FAFSA application for identity fraud and flag suspicious submissions before releasing money. Secretary McMahon said the administration has worked to rebuild fraud detection capabilities inside the department since taking office. The bill still needs Senate approval and a presidential signature before it becomes law, leaving cases like Snyder's unresolved for now. Even with stronger screening on the horizon, existing victims still have to fight their way through disputes, discharge applications, and lawsuits to clear their names. Beene expects identity verification requirements to expand further as fraud losses climb into the billions nationwide. Snyder's case now sits in federal court, where he's asking a judge to erase the debt and compensate him for the fight it took to get there. His fight shows what happens when a bureaucracy built for scale fails to double check a signature. A stranger signed his name once. The government spent over a year refusing to admit the mistake.