Colleges

A sports bookie was sentenced Thursday to 30 months in federal prison for a conspiracy to bribe former University of San Diego basketball star Brandon Johnson. Paul Joseph Thweni, 28, of Spring Valley pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court to a single count of conspiracy. Along with the 30 months in prison, District Judge Anthony Battaglia also sentenced him to three years' probation. Thweni and co-defendants allegedly induced Johnson, the school's all-time leading scorer, to take bribes so that gamblers could win bets in Las Vegas.

To make it easier for students to earn college credits in online courses, government regulation of such classes should be streamlined across state boundaries and better consumer protection rules enacted, a national commission said Thursday. Rules and fees allowing online courses to operate for academic credit in various states sometimes conflict with each other and are unnecessarily restricting the potential growth of online learning, according to the group headed by former U.S. secretary of Education Richard Riley.

"Simon Killer" is an amoral tale, and a cautionary one, that reminded me my mama was right when she said "Never talk to strangers" and "Looks can be deceiving. " Indie director Antonio Campos has put the tipoff in the title, suggesting that this particular Simon - played to chilling effect by Brady Corbet - is anything but simple and that he might possibly be lethal as well. Whether he is an actual killer or Campos is only sifting around for the right metaphor really is beyond the point.

Pat Haden always seemed like a well-scrubbed character from your mother's favorite musical, so when he showed up last week in USC's big spring production — actors, crew and musicians outnumbering the football team — it wasn't surprise casting. Indeed, it might be yet another new career for the guy who vertically leaps from one thing to the next the way you and I leap from tee box to tee box. If this keeps up, he'll soon be running Paramount. Still, the other night he used the word "fidoodled," in his role as Postman No. 2. As in: "the way he's got this place all fidoodled up for you. " Musical theater may never be the same.

Re "Colleges to offer tool for success," April 9 The California community college system's student success score card is yet another salvo in the misguided campaign to equate educational success with course completion. Administrative reliance on such "key measures" as completion rates are actually counter- productive, inducing many departments to improve completion rates by lowering standards for their students. You might ask those who are advocating the use of these tools how they would feel about being operated on by a doctor or flown by a pilot who benefited from higher completion rates.

Here's what they're saying in academic circles across the country: California wrecked its public schools decades ago, and now it's starting in on its colleges. That may be an exaggeration, but few would deny that this is a pivotal time for the state's much-admired public colleges and universities, which have been underfunded for years. In their efforts to expand access without spending more money, education officials and state lawmakers will no doubt offer all sorts of bad proposals for how to do more with less, and those who care about the system will have to be vigilant in protecting it. Already, there's legislation to create a fourth college system - in addition to the community colleges, the California State University and the University of California - with no classes, just tests.

At least 11 people were stabbed at a Houston-area college Tuesday, which was on lockdown after the attacks, officials said. At least four victims at the Cy-Fair campus of the Lone Star College system in a northwestern Houston suburb were taken by helicopter to local hospitals, and more were taken by ambulance, the school said in a statement. The Harris County Sheriff's Office reported that a suspect had been taken into custody after the incident at the school's Health Science Center.

More grim news for university grads: The starting salaries of those who have recently earned college diplomas have stagnated -- and even dropped -- over recent years, a report says. Between 2000 and 2012, the wages of fresh college grads dropped 8.5%, a roughly $3,200 decline for full-time workers. In the last six years alone, their pay fell 7.6%, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. Last year, college grads earned an average $16.60 an hour -- about $34,500 a year.  “The wages of young graduates fared poorly even before the Great Recession began,” the report said.

California community colleges on Tuesday will launch a new tool that provides a snapshot of performance at all 112 campuses, designed to help students pick the right school and push the institutions to improve. The Student Success Scorecard is being touted as one of the most ambitious attempts by any college system to make such key measures as completion rates, retention of students and job-training success accessible to the public and policymakers in an easy-to-use format. Information for each college as well as statewide averages is available via a portal on the community college chancellor's website , and individual campuses will have their own score card and a link to other colleges on their websites.

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.