Postgraduate Blues

You Are Here: May 27, 2012

These are the graduate stories you didn’t hear at commencement. In this hour of You Are Here, reporters explore the  jives and blues of graduating from college in 2012.

This episode examines the ethical debate surrounding unpaid internships. We ask why the seemingly harmless college expectation can polarize socioeconomic classes.  Reporters uncover how a Dartmouth graduate with two masters degrees went from living in a college dorm room to Boston’s homeless shelter. We investigate how government funded and private loan programs prey on students from the moment they turn the tassel. Reporters also travel to Yale to hear testimony of whether it takes hard work, optimism or just simple luck to move from the slums of Staten Island to a tree lined neighborhood across from the university’s quad. To end, college graduates young and old reveal the advice they received upon graduation; the advice that meant something later on in life, and the advice they completely regret listening to.

LISTEN: Intro- Postgraduate Blues
Introduction to the college graduates who are struggling to understand the worth of a degree, how to pay back student loans they don’t understand, and what comes next post graduation.

LISTEN: What’s A Degree Worth
You can be an Ivy League graduate but what can that degree do for you in the future? (Reporter David Levine)

LISTEN: What They Didn’t Tell You About Those Student Loans
Experts reveal the fine print to students loans you may have never signed if you knew what it all meant. (Reporter Brendan Mattox)

LISTEN: Beyond A Degree
The benefits and costs of being a life-long learner. (Reporter Dillon Rand)

LISTEN: The Ethics and Legality Of Internships
Unpaid internships dividing students by socioeconomic class. (Producer Kathryn Barnes)

LISTEN: Commencement Advice: The best and the worst
These are the stories from college graduates and the commencement advice that will stay with them forever, and the one’s they wish they never took.

LISTEN: Maurice Johnson
One Dartmouth graduate with two masters degrees finds himself homeless in Boston years later. (Reporter Dillon Rand)

Producer: Kathryn Barnes