During the week of graduation ceremonies, El Camino College is renting out parking lots for a 2026 FIFA World Cup game scheduled to be played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on Friday, June, 12.
ECC’s graduation ceremonies are set to take place on Wednesday, June 10, and Thursday, June 11, at 3 p.m.
While splitting the graduation ceremony across two days has helped accommodate a larger guest attendance, members of the ECC community have raised concerns about not hosting a ceremony on Friday.
A faculty member, who wished to remain anonymous, citing academic safety, expressed concern about the shift of dates.
“You have this graduation that is taking place on one of the days in the afternoon without consultation with either faculty, staff, or students,” the faculty member said.
Parking prices for the FIFA World Cup begin at around $101.89 for reserved spots in lots F, H, and L, according to SpotHero, a digital parking marketplace service.
ECC is also renting out the Marsee Auditorium on Thursday, June 11, for $6,189 to Lennox Academy‘s graduation ceremony, which is set to run from 2:00 to 5:30 p.m according to their public meeting agenda for Thursday, April 30.
Lennox Academy is a public charter high school located 12 minutes away from ECC.
“We’re having a lot of things simultaneously happen, so I had to kind of balance all of those things,” Director of Student Development Ricardo Gonzalez said.
During the 2025 graduation ceremony, ECC’s Murdock Stadium, which can seat 8,000 people, reached capacity. The college was forced to turn families away from the event.
Accommodating the expected attendees of graduation was a leading factor that led ECC to split the graduation ceremony into two days.
“We reached capacity at the stadium last year. We had to turn away many families,” Vice President of Student Services Jeffrey Stephenson said during an Academic Senate meeting.”Ensuring that students and their families could attend this ceremony was one of the primary drivers behind this decision.”
The present estimated number of attendees, 1,865, has pointed to an increase in individuals who are attending. Gonzales explained that last year’s numbers reached 1,216 graduates with over 9,000 guests.
“I think it’s giving a lot of students access, it’s also making sure that every ceremony has an adequate number of spaces available so that we don’t break any…polices or procedures or safety precautions,” Gonzalez said.
Erin Cartro, a 41-year-old parent of an ECC student, voiced satisfaction when it came to the two-day ceremonies.
Both her daughters’ graduation ceremonies are taking place on the same day, and Cartro is able to take off work to attend both ceremonies.
She expressed the convenience that having a double graduation brings to her family, explaining that it helped with scheduling conflicts.
“For our family dynamic, it was a blessing,” Castro said.
