College Students

Four college students were killed Saturday when their car collided with an oncoming vehicle on a two-lane Napa Valley highway, the California Highway Patrol said. The victims, who were pronounced dead at the scene, were identified as Boaz Pak, 20, Luke Nishikawa, 22, Simon Son, 19, and Chong Shin, 20. All attended Pacific Union College, a four-year liberal arts school in Angwin, a small town in the hills above Napa Valley. The four were in a Honda Civic that was struck by a Toyota pickup truck.

At least a dozen schools were put on lockdown, streets were sealed off and a wave of law enforcement swept across eastern Los Angeles and Santa Monica early Thursday after an anonymous caller threatened to "shoot up" a campus. A 19-year-old Santa Monica College student was arrested 90 minutes later on campus when he surrendered to school psychological services after police identified him as the person who had called 911, saying he had a gun and was going to attack a school and shoot himself on campus.

If you're facing years of student loan payments but aren't making much money because you're working in public service, the federal government has some good news for you. A law that takes effect Tuesday could allow you to have some of your college debt forgiven.

Los Angeles police say they have investigated three rape cases involving Occidental College students in the last three years, far fewer than current and former students outline in a civil rights complaint. In the U.S. Department of Education complaint filed Thursday, attorney Gloria Allred's law firm, which represents several current and former students, alleges that 37 students were "raped, sexually assaulted, battered, harassed or retaliated against for speaking out against sexual violence" since 2009.

Your 18-year-old is on the way to college, and you're tapping into that stash of money you've accumulated over the years in one of those tax-free college savings plans. But if you want to pay for more than room, board, tuition and books, you'd better check with the federal revenooers first. Buy the wrong thing and you could be hit with taxes and a 10% penalty on your earnings. Want to use the money to buy a laptop computer for the kid? Maybe you can, maybe not.

Families aren't saving enough for college, students are falling deeper into debt and nearly 13% of graduates owe more than $50,000, according to new research. The bottom line of the research, gleaned from a pair of new studies, is that college-debt woes continue to worsen despite all the attention focused on the ballooning debt of America's young people. An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the number of students taking out college loans, and the amount they borrowed, both grew 70%, or roughly 7% a year, from 2004 and 2012.

One warm Friday night in late spring 10 years ago, Kristin Denise Smart and three other young women started walking from their dorms at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. They were headed for the neighborhoods of apartment complexes and overpopulated "Animal House"-like bungalows that border the campus. They were looking for a party. It was Memorial Day weekend. Kristin's first year away at college was coming to a close. The 19-year-old from Stockton would have considered that something to celebrate.

Apple's annual back-to-school academic discount is back for the summer, giving students, parents and school faculty and staff members something back when they purchase a Mac or iPad. Those who qualify for the deal will get a $100 gift card when they buy Mac and a $50 card for buying an iPad. The gift cards can be used in the iOS App Store, iBookstore and iTunes store as well as the Mac App Store. Students in college or heading to college, parents buying for college students, and faculty and academic staff members at any grade level can partake in the offer.

A man was convicted Friday of beating his parents to death after his mother found out he was flunking out of college. After four days of deliberations, a jury found 20-year-old Alex Valentine guilty of murder in the August 1996 slayings of his parents. He faces a life prison term without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced Feb. 11. The battered bodies of Diane Valentine, 55, and Kenneth Valentine, 51, were found inside their water purification systems business in Mira Mesa.

A student upset about not getting an academic honor shot four persons to death Friday at the University of Iowa before fatally shooting himself, a school official said. The dead included faculty members and the student who had won the honor. Two others were critically wounded, authorities said. The gunman was identified as Gang Lu, a graduate student in physics from China, Ann Rhodes, vice president of university affairs, said.

Fewer than half of California's community college students transferred to a four-year school or earned an associate's degree in 2011-12, the lowest level of completion in five years, according to data released Tuesday by the chancellor's office. Statewide, 49.2% of students who enrolled in 2006 achieved those goals after six years, compared with 52.3% of students who enrolled in 2002. The completion rate for students needing remedial math and English was about 41%. By comparison, 71% of students who entered prepared to do college-level work in those subjects earned degrees or transferred.

The Riverside City College student body president is a registered sex offender who has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and committing lewd acts with a child less than 14 years old. School officials knew about the status of Doug Robert Figueroa, 40, prior to his run for office, but in a statement, they said they had “determined that there was no policy, statute or ordinance that could prohibit this student from seeking office as student body president”...

High school seniors are more worried about burdensome student-loan debt than about getting into the college of their dreams. That's the upshot from the annual “College Hopes and Worries” survey from the Princeton Review, a test-preparation and educational services company. Thirty-eight percent of students surveyed listed “level of debt incurred to pay for the degree” as their primary concern. That edged out the top answer the previous three years, which was getting into their preferred school but not being able to afford it or get enough financial aid. This year, 33% listed that as their biggest worry.

The two Pasadena police officers who fatally shot unarmed Azusa college student Kendrec McDade during a robbery investigation a year ago acted "within departmental policy," an internal review of the incident has determined. Findings of the Pasadena police administrative review board were announced in a brief statement Wednesday. Pasadena officers Jeffrey Newlen and Matthew Griffin shot McDade, 19, during a March 24, 2012, police pursuit that ended near the intersection of Orange Grove Boulevard and Sunset Avenue.

BAKERSFIELD - Fernando Jara is something of a star in Kern County - and a mystery. From humble beginnings, Jara founded a program to rehabilitate drug addicts and felons on a five-acre farm. He is completing a master's degree at Claremont School of Theology and will soon begin work on a doctorate and a law degree. The energetic 37-year-old and his wife, a Kern County supervisor and rising political star, attended President Obama's inauguration in January at the invitation of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Families aren't saving enough for college, students are falling deeper into debt and nearly 13% of graduates owe more than $50,000, according to new research. The bottom line of the research, gleaned from a pair of new studies, is that college-debt woes continue to worsen despite all the attention focused on the ballooning debt of America's young people. An analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the number of students taking out college loans, and the amount they borrowed, both grew 70%, or roughly 7% a year, from 2004 and 2012.

While her classmates agonize over which college to attend, high school senior Samantha Morgan is passing up offers from Cal State campuses in Long Beach and San Jose. She is heading out of California to avoid overcrowded classes and other state budget problems. And she can afford it thanks to a little-known program that offers discounts at public colleges and universities to students from 15 states, most of them in the West. Morgan is taking advantage of the Western Undergraduate Exchange to enroll at Northern Arizona University this fall.

Byron Herman rolled out of his dorm bed, yanked on snow pants and a beanie and stumbled across the parking lot to his 8 a.m. math class. By late morning, the 19-year-old Tehachapi student was on his snowboard, cutting crescent shapes into a mountain slope glistening under ice-blue skies. What was unusual about this scenario last month was that Herman attends not a select academy or elite university, but Cerro Coso Community College, a public two-year institution with a campus in Mammoth Lakes.

Re "Pushing reform too far," Editorial, Jan. 27 Gov. Jerry Brown wants community college students to "devise an educational plan so they enroll in the courses they need. " Whatever happened to the concept of "finding yourself" in college? Few college freshman (mostly recent high school graduates) know exactly what they want to do in life because they haven't been exposed. College is where to get that exposure. Henry David Thoreau's comment that "the mass of people live lives of quiet desperation" applies to those who either didn't have the opportunity to find what they love to do or found out too late in life to change.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has decided to look into whether students are actually getting good deals on financial products marketed to them through colleges and universities. A 2009 law restricted credit card issuers from using certain types of marketing on college campuses, and made agreements between the financial firms and colleges subject to public disclosure, the consumer bureau noted in its announcement Thursday. However, it said, less is known about arrangements for other products marketed to students, such as identification cards that double as debit cards, cards used to access scholarship and student loan funds, and school-affiliated bank accounts.