The university administration has recently announced that they are requiring all graduating seniors to buy brand new graduation robes with special fancy gold lining, or they will not be allowed to walk and receive their diploma. Actually. They cost about $60-$80 apiece depending on shipping and tassel quantity.

President Ron Daniels defended this excessively unnecessary measure by affirming that the new robes will be “made out of recycled materials.” To expand on that, we mean literal trash, repurposed straight out of the garbage bin and sewn together into a semi-wearable robe. While students are required to wear this, a homemade garbage robe may also be acceptable.

When told many seniors had already purchased their older friends’ robes to walk in, Daniels said, “That’s really not my fucking problem, is it? Haha.”

As seniors process through the ceremony, collectively cosplaying as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, even more changes are made. Instead of stoles, a string of paper towel tubes is now required by school policy to be worn around each student’s neck as s/he crosses the stage to accept one of the most prestigious recognitions of their lives. To continue on this sustainable trend, commencement speaker Frank Bruni will be reading only from pieces he wrote before 2006.

Additionally, Ron Daniels is taking steps to move the 2018 commencement ceremony to the local city dump, where seniors can proudly graduate in the presence of their families, peers, and the landfills containing the old graduation robes.

“We just love repurposing garbage,” said Daniels, who lives up to his claim by routinely accepting students who were rejected by Harvard.