If nothing is certain but death and taxes, then funeral service may be the closest thing to a recession-proof career in these uncertain times. Nowhere is that more evident than mortuary science programs like the one at Nassau Community College, where interest and applications have mounted as the economy contracts. At Nassau, which offers the only such public program in the metropolitan area, inquiries about mortuary science are up 15 percent in recent months, and enrollment for last fall's class was nearly double the year before. At the American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Education, a private program in Manhattan,...