Virginia’s graduation and dropout rates improved slightly over last year, with varied results across districts in the Richmond region. Data released yesterday by the Virginia Department of Education showed 83.2 percent of students who started ninth grade in the 2005-06 school year earned a state-approved diploma within four years. The on-time graduation rate for the 98,043 students in the Class of 2009 is an uptick from the four-year graduation rate of 82.2 percent for the Class of 2008.

Several Richmonders are among the 249 Virginia Military Institute cadets who graduated May 16. They are:

• Thomas D. Gottwald, bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering.

• Bryce A. Carter, bachelor of science degree in civil engineering

• Mark E. Gliebe, bachelor of arts degree in economics/business; graduating honors include Army commission.

Virginia officials are disputing a report that says the state’s high school graduation rate dropped over a 10-year period. The report by the publisher of Education Week says Virginia had a 73.4 percent graduation rate in 1996, compared with 69.2 percent in 2006. The statistics used by Editorial Projects in Education were the latest available to compare states.

If Tahliek Taliaferro were alive, he would have walked across the stage at Powhatan High School yesterday to receive his diploma. He would have been 19 and among nearly 300 students who make up the Class of 2009. Instead, his teary grandmother accepted an honorary diploma for her grandson to a round of applause at yesterday’s graduation ceremony.

Jessica Gayle Inlow of Midlothian successfully completed degree requirements at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Inlow majored in habilitation of the deaf and received a bachelor of science degree. More than 1,300 graduates were honored May 9 at commencement exercises in Daniel Meyer Coliseum on the TCU campus.

Rhonda Kinard of Mobile, Ala., now of Richmond, was recently awarded a joint degree in Law (juris doctorate) and Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship (master of arts) at Regent University in Virginia Beach. Kinard was one of about 1,033 graduates May 9 at Regent, a Christian university. She will begin work as a law clerk to Chief Justice Leroy R. Hassell Sr. of the Virginia Supreme Court at the end of the summer.

A juggler and a dog aren’t common sights at commencement ceremonies. But yesterday’s graduation of 201 students at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland contained a bit of levity with the pomp and circumstance. Commencement speaker Thomas R. Morris, secretary of education for Virginia, told the graduates that they now join the one-third of adults in Virginia who hold a baccalaureate degree.

WILLIAMSBURG—As the rain pounded on the roof of William and Mary Hall yesterday, Dora Terrell Williams couldn’t help smiling. The 95-year-old Richmond resident said she wasn’t going to let a little bad weather spoil her special day. Williams was back on the College of William and Mary campus where she attended classes in the 1930s to watch her granddaughter, Dolly Williams—an 11th-generation William and Mary student—receive her bachelor’s degree.

CHARLOTTESVILLE—For the 180th time, excited students graduating from the University of Virginia gathered for Final Exercises. Behind them yesterday, thousands of parents watched intently as U.Va. President John T. Casteen III conferred 6,280 degrees upon the members of the cheering, beachball-lobbing crowd. A different kind of familial support was the theme of yesterday’s Finals Address.

With cheers, tears, bouncing balls and happy calls, about 2,500 students celebrated their graduation from Virginia Commonwealth University yesterday. “It was worth the wait—30 years—to get this,“ said Valerie Mack of Chesterfield County, who received her bachelor’s degree in social work yesterday, a goal she started working on in 1979 and delayed while she raised five children.

College graduates—some with student debts rivaling mortgage payments—may be second-guessing themselves about the value of their hard-earned and expensive bachelor’s degrees. But as they pick up their diplomas this month and head into a world of economic uncertainties, the U.S. Census Bureau has a word of reassurance. The bureau says a worker with a bachelor’s degree earns about $26,000 more on average each year than someone with a high school diploma.

The following Virginia Tech students were among those honored at the university’s fall commencement ceremony held Dec. 19, 2008, in Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg. Caroline County Kevin Schnabel Chesterfield County Benjamin Axman Stephen Biggs Katelyn Lehmkuhler Brooke Love Michael Maldonado Matthew Pridgen

In one of the bleakest job markets in recent memory, the graduates of 2009 are having to adjust their career expectations and broaden their job-search criteria. “You have to change your strategy in this market,“ said Grant Garcia, an MBA student at the University of Richmond who is writing a blog on businessweek.com about his job hunt in the battered financial sector.

Virginia’s public schools could soon have to meet graduation benchmarks just as they do for academics to earn accreditation, depending on the outcome of a state Board of Education vote expected tomorrow. “This is a big change; this is a significant addition to our accountability program,“ said Department of Education spokesman Charles Pyle.

About 81 percent of students in Virginia’s class of 2008 graduated on time, according to data released this morning by the state Department of Education. The figures represent students who entered ninth grade for the first time in 2004. Statewide, here are the percentages of students who graduated on time, according to the data: