MERYL STREEP She earned her B.A. from Vassar in 1971, and later received her M.F.A. from Yale – “By my sophomore year my standards of personal hygiene had slipped a bit,” Streep joked in a 1983 commencement speech. “This was 1969, after all.” All kidding aside, Streep has credited Vassar with turning her into a confident, smart woman. “Vassar made me think,” she said. “I felt like I had a personality and a brain.”