GBH News' new podcast, College Uncovered, pulls back the ivy on higher education

For many teens and their families, preparing for college is a very stressful and confusing time. Understanding the application process, along with the many problems, pitfalls and risks that are part of the system, can feel like a daunting experience. GBH News, in collaboration with The Hechinger Report, is launching College Uncovered, a new podcast that's aiming to help families navigate the inner workings of the higher education system and give prospective students the information they need at every stage of the process. GBH's All Things Considered host Arun Rath spoke about the new podcast with one of its co-hosts, GBH's higher education reporter Kirk Carapezza. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Arun Rath: We were just talking before we sat down here about how everything that I described in this intro describes my family right now, with a 17-year-old high-school junior. We are thinking about all of this stuff. It's also kind of perfect because college applications are different these days, beyond just the affirmative action decision. It's definitely a different world than when I was applying.

Kirk Carapezza: Right, and there's a lot to chew on with this topic. Our first season really dives into what we call "the business of college admissions." People who listen to GBH News or are familiar with some of our reporting, you hear us in your newscast or you hear the features, but the reality is that: when you do a 30-second news spot or a four-minute feature, there's so much information and good tape that doesn't get into that piece. With this podcast, what we're trying to do is to reveal the inner workings of colleges and pull back the ivy a little bit to explain to consumers, students, families, how colleges really work.

We start with college admissions and some of the secrets of college admissions — and, specifically, why colleges are doing certain things and how it affects us and it affects your family. But it's not just students and families, if you're a taxpayer, if you're a policymaker, if you're a citizen who lives near one of these schools and wants to know how this opaque industry works, with this podcast College Uncovered, we're here to tell you it.

Rath: Definitely seems like it would lend itself towards long form.

Carapezza: Right. I've been covering colleges and universities for the past decade now here at GBH, and to be honest with you, the schools are not always completely forthcoming. They work pretty hard to hide how they operate, and I think that's led to a lot of confusion, distrust and money anxiety among students and families. With the podcast, we're trying to focus on those smaller stories that affect your family and see how those stories illuminate the bigger story.

In this first season, I think the bigger story is that many Americans are losing faith in college. You look at these surveys — there's one out recently from Gallup that says only a third of Americans have high confidence in college. Fewer Americans are going to college straight out of high school. Today, almost half of American parents said they'd prefer that their children not enroll in a four-year program right out of high school.

And these families, when you talk to them, they're worried about the crushing debt that it can bring — or they're worried that their son and daughter might graduate and end up in their basement, underemployed. Four in 10 college graduates are underemployed now. Or they're shopping around for college and they're unable to get basic information, like: how much does it actually cost? How long would it take to graduate?

Rath: It's so complicated now that I know a lot of parents are turning to consultants that they can pay thousands and thousands of dollars to. It's not really an option for a lot of families who simply couldn't afford that kind of thing. What are the insider details that you're going to get to people who can't afford that?

Carapezza: We try to avoid the "experts" and the college presidents and administrators. In one episode, we do talk to some of these paid college consultants who wealthy families pay hundreds of dollars for just to navigate through the process. And one of the missions of the podcast is to look at: how did we get here? How did it become so convoluted? Why is it so complex?

We take our mission as journalists seriously, but with the podcast, we don't take ourselves too seriously. One episode, which we call affirmative action for the rich, we start out talking about the Varsity Blues case — which, anyone who has a subscription to People Magazine knows the details of that case. But the podcast isn't about Varsity Blues. It's about all the other ways that wealthy families game the system, whether it's early decision, where many schools are admitting more than half of their classes early and that benefits rich families who can afford to accept an offer before seeing a financial aid package. During the pandemic, we found some of these schools were admitting 60%, 70%, and in some cases, 80% of their classes early. This is at a time when the Supreme Court just ruled against colleges considering race in admissions. Schools are saying one thing, saying "We value diversity and equity," but they're doing something else with early decision.

We have another episode that looks at sophomore admissions. One in four college students won't make it to their sophomore year. So one thing colleges do is they admit students as sophomores — and you don't even need to reapply. You don't need to write another essay. Take a young woman who wanted to go to Cornell. It was her dream school. She applies and she gets rejected, but with a wink and a nod, they say, "Hey, you know what? Go somewhere else for a year, maintain a B average, and then come back and you're in — and there'll be a seat for you to fill."

One reason why colleges do this is, one, it fills the seats and it maintains enrollment and revenue, but it's also good for their college rankings if that student didn't necessarily have the SAT scores or the grades. Rankings are only based on freshman stats. So, in that sophomore year, you can admit the sons and daughters of alumni, or the kids who might not necessarily have the best test scores and grades.

So these are some of the secrets that we're trying to reveal in the first season. But again, the mission is to look at: how does this industry work? So many of us either aspire to go to one of these schools, we graduated from one of these schools, we work at one of these schools, or we just live near one. But few of us, I think, really understand how colleges work.

Rath: So you were talking about how there's a big debate now about the value of a college education. And on top of the things you mentioned, going into debt and all those things, I know that young people now see people on TikTok and YouTube making millions before they're even in college. So is there a good argument we can make to our children now that college is worth it?

Carapezza: I'd be the first to tell you going to college does pay off right over a lifetime. If you graduate on time and without too much debt, over a lifetime, your earnings will go up. But at this moment, this inflection point, we have 40 million Americans now who have some college but no degree — and still owe money on their loans. So I think the narrative that you and I were sold, which was, "Go to a four-year school, study whatever you want, become a lawyer, do something, you'll succeed," this generation is skeptical of that.

I think it's in colleges' best interest to be more transparent about what students are actually getting, when it comes to job placement, to the cost. So many students and families sign on the dotted line without truly understanding, one, what it's going to cost and, two, whether they'll get a "return on investment." That's the number-two thing that parents and families say that they want out of college, which is a good job. It barely gets edged out by academic quality.

Rath: So, worth it — but you've got to be smart about how you do it.

Carapezza: Right and hopefully this podcast will arm consumers, students and families with the information that they need to make those smart decisions.