Recently, the U.S. Education Department discovered incidents of former college students faking their own deaths to avoid paying student loans, but some Iowa State faculty doubt such a thing could happen here.

According to the Associated Press, the Education Department’s internal audit found close to $4 million in forgiven student loans due to falsified death certificates over a 2 1/2-year period.

The audit discovered 708 borrowers who had received education loan death discharges were still alive and drawing wages.

Roberta Johnson, assistant director of the student financial aid office, said she doubts ISU students could get away with faking death to avoid loans.

“We don’t cancel any loans until we’ve received certification from the family, and that certification requires an actual death certificate,” she said.

She said while a copy of the death certificate may be sent, it has to be an official copy.

To falsify a copy, one would need to possess the official forms, Johnson said.

“I suppose if one is especially devious they could figure out a way to do that,” she said. “[But] I don’t perceive that something like that could happen at Iowa State.”

Earl Dowling, director of student financial aid, said a student faking a death certificate most likely would not happen at ISU because the university uses a “controlled reporting mechanism.”

“The procedures that we follow in the office of student financial aid are meant to protect both the integrity of the student aid program and the privacy of the family,” he said. “Our documentation to cancel the student loans originates with a university office, not an outside party.”

The Education Department is making new guidelines for determining whether a death certificate is authentic, Dowling said, but they won’t affect ISU.

“Those procedures, probably, will parallel the procedures Iowa State already follows,” he said. “We won’t have to change; other schools may.”

Bill Lupkes, junior in fashion design and merchandising, has received student loans but said he would not do something such as faking a death certificate to get out of paying them.

“Of course it’s not right to go doing something like that, and you can’t get away with it. You’ll get caught somehow,” he said.

“It’s too big to try to get away with it.”