Menu
Sign In Pricing Add Podcast
Podcast Image

Up First from NPR

The Class of 2025

25 May 2025

Description

A lot has changed in higher education since President Trump took office. This week on The Sunday Story, Ayesha reflects on her own college graduation, and she sits down with three graduating college seniors. They talk about how funding cuts have upended their postgrad plans and how the last semester has made them think differently about what college is all about.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Audio
Transcription

Full Episode

0.349 - 16.906 Ayesha Roscoe

I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and you're listening to The Sunday Story, where we go beyond the news to bring you one big story. A few weeks before graduating from Duke Kunshan University, senior Liam Powell received a letter he'd been anticipating from the U.S. State Department.

0

17.687 - 22.652 Jerome Powell

Dear William N. Powell, thank you for your interest in an internship with the U.S. Department of State.

0

23.536 - 41.58 Ayesha Roscoe

Liam was a global health major and he'd interned at the United States Agency for International Development or USAID. So when he saw there was an internship with the State Department, he applied and he was chosen. But then came a federal hiring freeze.

0

42.028 - 60.874 Jerome Powell

we regret to inform you that the U.S. Department of State has canceled the summer 2025 cycle of the student internship program. In accordance with the president's executive order entitled Hiring Freeze and the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management's joint memorandum, the department hereby rescinds your tentative offer to participate in the student internship program.

0

61.634 - 71.517 Jerome Powell

We wish you success in your academic career. The email came to me March 14th this year, so pretty far down the line after the hiring freeze.

76.724 - 108.304 Ayesha Roscoe

A couple of weeks ago, he walked across the stage at his graduation. As the class of 2025 celebrate their achievements so far, many like Liam are grappling with the question of what next? And that's the way it is with graduations, right? No one knows what is to come. Graduation season, it's a celebration. It's a time of optimism.

108.784 - 141.19 Ayesha Roscoe

And you know, it makes me feel nostalgic for my own college graduation from Howard University. You know, you're thinking like of all the people who've come before you, and you are now a part of this long line of alumni. And so it's almost like you're being baptized into this new part of your life. As a person, I was not ready to be on my own. I wasn't prepared or I didn't think I was prepared.

142.622 - 174.436 Ayesha Roscoe

But what I had learned in college, the seeds that were planted in me in college, they would bloom. And the woman that you see before you today or that you hear today, her voice was developed on that college campus. Now, I'm going someplace with this. I've been thinking about that younger Aisha because I recently talked to some graduating seniors who are in that same place.

175.737 - 190.286 Ayesha Roscoe

At the same time, a lot has changed in higher education in the last several months. It seems like every time you turn on the news, there's a headline about how universities are being affected by the decisions of the federal government.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.