College Students

In what could be an encouraging sign of change in the long-standing shortage of Americans preparing for "clean energy" careers, the subject is suddenly hot on college campuses across the nation -- a surge of interest largely stimulated by the specter of global warming.

Karina De La Cruz wakes up in the dark on her first day of classes at UCLA. Pushing herself off a two-seat couch in the living room of a San Pedro apartment this September morning, she tries not to wake a brother sleeping in a twin bed next to her, or another dozing with his wife and baby daughter in the bedroom. De La Cruz dresses quickly and briefly considers taking her skateboard, then thinks of how her mother rolls her eyes whenever she rides it. She leaves it behind.

A classroom dispute at Los Angeles City College in the emotional aftermath of Proposition 8 has given rise to a lawsuit testing the balance between 1st Amendment rights and school codes on offensive speech. Student Jonathan Lopez says his professor called him a "fascist bastard" and refused to let him finish his speech against same-sex marriage during a public speaking class last November, weeks after California voters approved the ban on such unions.

Students in a UCLA chemistry lab watched helplessly Thursday afternoon as a classmate suddenly slashed the neck of a fellow student, causing serious injuries. The attack occurred just past noon on the sixth floor of Young Hall, prompting swift police mobilization and leaving students shaken by the violence as word spread across campus. One witness inside the lab told The Times that the alleged assailant, a 20-year-old male student in the class, walked up to the 20-year-old female victim and appeared to repeatedly punch her. The witness said he realized it was more serious when she slumped over, bleeding profusely from her neck.

At the UCLA studio of the American Society of Civil Engineers, undergraduates are engaged in such difficult extracurricular projects as designing and building a 20-foot-long concrete canoe to race against other California college teams. But the young engineers face a potentially tougher challenge as University of California leaders consider a plan to charge these students more for their undergraduate education than most others at the university. As part of a plan to plug UC's battered budget, the regents may vote as early as next month on the controversial, tradition-breaking proposal to require engineering undergraduates, along with those studying business, to pay $900 more a year than the rest of the student body.

A University of Southern California fraternity has been temporarily suspended as Los Angeles police investigate allegations that a female student and possibly others were sexually assaulted at the Lambda Chi Alpha house during a rowdy party this week. USC officials said three women had come forward reporting assaults at Lambda Chi Alpha early Wednesday and a campus crime alert was issued.

Two Santa Ana College football players and a male friend were charged with raping and sexually assaulting a drunk or unconscious woman last summer and videotaping the crime, Orange County prosecutors said Friday. John Paul Foster II, 22, of Seaside in Monterey County, and Michael Alexander Clemmons, 19, of Tustin were arrested and arraigned this week in the July 2008 assault. The third suspect, Luster Ditto Lewis, 20, of Irvine, turned himself in Friday and was arraigned.

Leaders of California's public college and university systems announced Wednesday that they are launching a joint task force to boost the number of community college students who transfer to the state's four-year universities. Only 14,000 of the 2.7 million students enrolled in the state's 110 community colleges transfer to University of California campuses, and 55,000 others move on to California State University campuses.

For years Chase Abrams has lived a double life: By day a popular student at Sierra Canyon School who played football and enjoyed hanging out with friends, by night an intent student of film studies at Cal State Los Angeles who organized college film festivals and held his own intellectually and socially. Today, the energetic 18-year-old can finally take a breath.

If you're paying for a college education, you may need an advanced degree to figure out how to claim federal tax breaks for those expenses. Congress in recent years has approved myriad special credits, deductions and other tax breaks for people paying tuition bills and related costs, and new breaks and twists were added in the recent stimulus bill. The tax breaks can be generous, saving you as much as $2,500 per student.