Biden to grads: Ignore the cynics

PHILADELPHIA, May 13 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was short on advice in offering the commencement address to undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania Monday.

Saying he's "gained too much wisdom to offer any advice," Biden encouraged the graduates to have faith in their future.

Listing a string of technological achievements, Biden told the 2013 class: "Don't listen to the cynics. ... They were wrong about my generation and they're wrong about yours."

The university conferred an honorary Masters of Law degree on Biden during the ceremony.

Politico noted Biden's ties to Penn: Two of his children graduated from there and his granddaughter just finished her freshman year.

Joking about his relative lack of wealth for such a high ranking government official, Biden commiserated with the students, many just eight months away from beginning to pay off student loans.

"No man has entered the White House with less assets than Joe Biden," he said, quoting a newspaper report when he assumed the vice presidency in 2008.

That, he said, was because of the number of children and grandchildren whom he helped pay to attend Pennsylvania, Syracuse, Tulane and Yale.