Graduation

"I like collecting business cards, and I write a lot of letters to my friends. "I was in band for seven years; I play the trumpet and I'm very damn good too. "My favorite subjects are science and computers. "My favorite celebrity is Tom Hanks because everybody else, when they get famous, they change, but Tom Hanks is still the same. It's like that song by Billy Joel which goes, 'Don't go changing to try to please me.' "Before, I used to say that nothing scares me, but now death scares me. The unknown scares me."

We have once again entered the college commencement season, which means we'll soon be reading about uplifting graduation speeches delivered by prominent Americans. Or at least by prominent liberal Americans. It's becoming increasingly apparent that conservative speakers aren't welcome on college and university campuses. Last month, in the span of a few days, student protests disrupted a presentation by Karl Rove at the University of Massachusetts and one by Rand Paul at Howard University.

Strictly speaking, the graduation exercise that took place on the fourth floor of Men's Central Jail last week wasn't much of a rite of passage since the graduates weren't going anywhere any time soon. Nonetheless, the hourlong celebration in honor of 15 gay male inmates who had earned high school diplomas or GEDs, or completed 10-week courses in drug rehabilitation, anger management and life skills moistened as many eyes per capita as any traditional school commencement.

WASHINGTON - President Obama urged graduates of a celebrated historically black college Sunday to use their education to help others and to work for "something larger than yourself," citing the example of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In the commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Obama urged graduates headed to law school to make sure they "defend the powerless" during their careers. He said new physicians should find ways to "heal folks in under-served communities," and business school graduates should consider "putting people to work, or transforming a neighborhood.

Before many Cal State seniors walk across the stage to receive a diploma in coming weeks, they will have to break out their wallet at least once more. More than half of Cal State universities charge a commencement fee - a requirement to graduate. At San Diego State, students must fork over $55 before they don the cap and gown. At San Francisco State, it takes $100 to walk across the stage before thousands of spectators. Fifteen of Cal State's 23 campuses charge some sort of graduation fee, according to the Oakland Tribune, which first reported on the charges Monday.

Latino leaders and activists demand that we become more inclusive. Yet, once again, a special Latino graduation [celebration] was held at Cal State Northridge ("Higher Degrees of Difficulty," May 25). Once again, Latinos have separated themselves out. . . . Will it ever be as important to them to be Americans as it is to be Latinos? CAROL KEELER Sylmar

Dear graduates: It's that time of year again: graduation season.  Across the country, the Adults are scrambling to their lecterns and op-ed columns for one last chance to tell you what to do, despite ample evidence over the last couple of years that the Adults have no idea what they're doing. (Full disclosure: This reporter is a Young Person.) Some of this advice will be useful. Some of it - such as in 2005, with Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford University ( “Connect the dots” )

A lamb tied to a post, a peanut butter smearing session and a drive-by water balloon attack are sure signs that it's that time of year again. For years, graduating seniors have tried to leave their mark by plotting the perfect prank. But as the schemes have escalated in complexity and daring, school officials are coming down increasingly hard, banning whole groups of students from graduation ceremonies because of stunts that went too far. At Heritage High School in the Bay Area town of Brentwood, more than 50 students were suspended and banned from walking at their graduation ceremonies, according to officials with the Liberty Union High School District.

The unemployment rate dropped last month for men and women, blacks and whites, lifting hopes that the long dry spell in the jobs market may be coming to an end. But for recent college graduates and other young adults, the labor situation didn't just remain dire -- it got worse. For 20- to 24-year-olds, the jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percent to 16% in November, even as unemployment nationally slipped to 10% from 10.2%. And data from the Labor Department show that the unemployment figure for college graduates in that age group was 10.6% in the third quarter -- the highest since early 1983 and more than double the rate for older college-educated workers.

Los Angeles school officials are examining whether three students who flunked a required course should have been allowed to make up the class in a few days at another campus and then return to graduate with their classmates. Several teachers criticized the quick turnaround as inappropriate, saying it made a mockery of academic standards. They also questioned whether the well-liked students had received favorable treatment. Local administrators, however, insisted that the students instigated the transfers themselves and worked within the rules of the system to make up credits.

SACRAMENTO - The graduation rates of UC students came under more scrutiny Wednesday as Gov. Jerry Brown urged administrators and faculty to prod more undergraduates to earn a degree in four years, not six. Brown recently proposed giving UC and Cal State more funds if they increase their graduation rates by 10% by 2017. UC leaders have said that is an admirable but unreasonable goal and that such issues as students' outside employment and their desire to take double majors slow them down.

Before many Cal State seniors walk across the stage to receive a diploma in coming weeks, they will have to break out their wallet at least once more. More than half of Cal State universities charge a commencement fee - a requirement to graduate. At San Diego State, students must fork over $55 before they don the cap and gown. At San Francisco State, it takes $100 to walk across the stage before thousands of spectators. Fifteen of Cal State's 23 campuses charge some sort of graduation fee, according to the Oakland Tribune, which first reported on the charges Monday.

WASHINGTON - Can a public high school hold its graduation ceremony in a local church? The Supreme Court has been pondering that question in its private conference for six weeks, discussing whether to take up a Wisconsin case that could reset the line separating church and state. Last year, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that the Elmbrook School District, near Milwaukee, violated the 1st Amendment and its ban on "an establishment of religion" by holding a high school graduation ceremony in the sanctuary of an evangelical Christian church.

In a major case of academic poaching involving crosstown rivals, USC has lured away two prominent neuroscientists from UCLA with a promise to expand their internationally renowned lab that uses brain imaging techniques to study Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, autism and other disorders. Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson will move to the USC Keck School of Medicine campus next fall, along with scores of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staffers who now work at UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, known as LONI.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown wants to tie some state funding for California's public universities to a host of new requirements, including 10% increases in the number of transfer students from community colleges and the percentage of freshmen graduating within four years. Brown, who has repeatedly said the universities should be leaner and serve more students, is asking for equivalent increases in several other areas as well, according to a copy of his plan obtained by The Times.

BOSTON - Lu Lingzi learned Sunday that she had passed a major exam for her studies at Boston University. The next morning, the test and a major project behind her, the 23-year-old Chinese graduate student and two friends headed over to watch the Boston Marathon. They chose spots near the finish line. Hours later, two bombs exploded there. It was midafternoon in Boston, the middle of the night in China. As hours ticked by and Lu still hadn't called, her parents and grandparents grew panicked.

First Lady Michelle Obama on Saturday urged the first full graduating class at UC Merced to help solve society's problems with the same creativity and persistence they showed in wooing her to be their commencement speaker and in pioneering the 4-year-old campus in the San Joaquin Valley. "Why did I chose the University of California Merced to deliver my first commencement speech as first lady? Well, let me tell you something, the answer is simple. You inspired me.

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.

State officials Tuesday reported slight improvements in dropout and graduation rates and continued gains made by Latino and African American students. Overall, the state dropout rate declined by 1.5 percentage points to 13.2% for the class of 2012, when compared to the class of 2011. For Latinos, the improvement was 2.1 percentage points; for African Americans, it was 3.1%. The state graduation rate was 78.5%, up 1.4 percentage points from 2011, with larger gains among Latinos and African Americans.