I forgot to mention, there is a Michael Negrete group on Facebook. The comments on there are a bit curious. It seems there is consensus that he disappeared voluntarily, but that is not believe to be the case with law enforcement etc.
Thanks for your previous response. You make some interesting points. Maybe he was tricked.
As far as people suggesting he left on his own: it seems to arise from the fact that there don't seem to be any other viable theories.
Recently, a kid left a party somewhere along the 405 near the Getty Museum and disappeared. They sent in teams fast and found him--turned out he got hit walking along the freeway and left to die. Not that such is a possibility here, but sometimes a one-off improbable event does occur.
There was a case where a man in this 30s got up in the middle of the night and went for a drive from his home in Thousand Oaks--insomnia--and never came back. People thought he might have left on his own too for a long time, even though it was not in his character.
They found his car at the bottom of a ravine (I think along Kanan Dume) 3 years later. These sorts of cases happen more than most might think. Whenever someone disppears with their car, I imagine they're at the bottom of a river or canyon somewhere.
But these scenarios don't apply to this kid without a car at UCLA.
I go back and forth between falling down an elevator shaft or equivalent and hooking up with the wrong person. It's important to note that the kid who went in the wrong door and got electocuted was found within a year--the next time someone went to that room for something.
If not that, then it was a person he met, a person who knew the meeting would be secret at all costs, and then who used that to his advantage. 1st Semester way from home, wants to explore life a bit; spills the beans on chat, and hooks up with the wrong person.
There is also the highly improbable case that he did meet someone, and they left in a car, and rather than murder, they both went down with the car similar to the Kanan Dume case. But I can't find any missing persons in CA in a similar time frame--could have been an older person who was reported missing within a few weeks or that time period, but again, nothing comes up. Can't imagine why anyone would want to hurt this kid. Crime of opportunity, bad luck, naivete etc, related to a private personal life or something related.