John Yang:

Judy, over the past year, The Boston Globe tracked down 93 of the 113 valedictorians in the city's public high school classes of 2005 to 2007.

While nearly 80 percent of them did become the first in their families to go to college, often on scholarships, their ambitions were not always fulfilled. Fully one-quarter of them didn't finish college within six years. And, today, 40 percent earn less than $50,000 a year.

Malcolm Gay is one of The Boston Globe reporters who worked on this massive project, and he joins us from the studios of PBS station WGBH in Boston.

Malcolm, thanks for joining us.