The Price of Literacy

            Some 40,000 people attended the University of Southern California graduation ceremonies May 15 in Los Angeles. All available seats near the speaker’s podium and the two large video screens were taken an hour before the beginning of the ceremonies, which featured a speech by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. As the USC Triojan Band began the processional music, we sat on some concrete steps around the corner from the action. On the step in front of us, a small man holding a large pile of papers sat down gingerly.

            It was easy to imagine that the man was a non-custodial father attending his daughter’s graduation. He wore a creased but dapper striped suit, a white shirt, scuffed brown loafers with tan socks, the outfit of a man used to wearing jeans and flip-flops.

During ceremonial introductions and speeches which included the conferring of a Doctor of Humane Letters degree for the governor, the Dad went through his papers, page by page, writing notes, initialing, bookmarking.

            We watched a parade of late-arriving bachelor’s degree candidates, mostly young girls in black robes, mortarboards and four-inch heels, scurry past, clutching tote bags and teddy bears. Flower sellers peddled orchid leis at $20 apiece, $30 for double-strung. A woman in her thirties, dressed as a fifties starlet, blonde, strapless taffeta, ringlets, looked for a missing companion. An African family in full tribal regalia marched together away from the ceremonies.

            Our candidate, splendidly arrayed in doctoral robes ($900), velvet tam ($150) and academic hood, sat around the corner, about a city block away, with some 4800 other graduates.

            When Governor Schwarzenegger began his speech, the Dad in front of us laid his sheaf of papers on his knees, gazed vaguely in the direction of the loudspeakers, and smiled sweetly. The Governor, whose current budget contains deep cuts to education, said “Maybe now that I’m a doctor, they’ll listen to me in Sacramento.” Schwarzenegger, whose daughter is an undergraduate at the university, gave his advice for success: Come to America. Work your butt off. Marry a Kennedy.

            Undergraduate tuition at USC was about $37,693 this year, according to the Daily Trojan, the student newspaper. The average student is said to graduate with a $23,800 debt.

            When the recessional music began, the Dad went back to his papers. We couldn’t resist peeking. At the top of each page was written Bankruptcy Court.