新闻周刊:债台高筑 谁为高额助学贷款买单?(2)

If student loan programs are bad, what would be better?

如果学生贷款项目不好，那么什么才是更好的呢？

Whatever their complaints, most critics gravitate to the same solution:

不论批评的声音如何，大部分批评家还是倾向于相同的解决方案：

Make tuition so cheap that students no longer need to borrow.

让学费便宜些，这样学生就无需借钱上学。

As the Wharton School's Peter Cappelli writes in “Will College Pay Off?”,

正如（宾夕法尼亚大学）沃顿商学院的彼得·卡普利在《上大学会有回报吗？》一文中写道，

"Using loans to pay for college is an idea with great appeal to economists¹ because the people getting the financial benefit—

“用贷款支付大学学费对经济学家很有吸引力，因为有既得的经济利益——

the graduates who get the good jobs—are the ones paying for it….

找到好工作的毕业生，会为此买单……

If there is not a good payoff from the degree, that argument falls apart."

如果贷款拿到的学位没有得到好的回报，那么这个论据是站不住脚的。”

Suppose, however, that governments slashed² college tuition.

然而，假设政府降低了大学学费，

How would this encourage students to finish their studies or carefully choose a promising³ major?

又将如何鼓励学生完成学业或是慎重选择一个前景光明的专业呢？

What would this do about all the wasted time and money we already see from those who drop out or squeak⁴ through?

对于那些虚度光阴、浪费金钱的学生，最后辍学或是勉强毕业，降低学费又有什么用呢？

Free college would plainly encourage even weaker students to throw the dice⁵.

免费大学显然会鼓励更弱的学生掷骰子。

What's the harm of creating limitless educational opportunities?

创造无限的教育机会会有什么害处吗？

The most obvious is the massive burden on taxpayers⁶.

最明显的是纳税人的负担。

The deeper problem, though, is that the more college degrees multiply, the less they mean to employers.

然而，更深层次的意义是，大学学位越多，对雇主的意义就越小。

Researchers call this "credential inflation."

研究人员称之为“学历通货膨胀”。

Most of what you learn in college never comes up after the final exam.

大部分在大学学到的东西从不会在期末考试后出现。

This is obvious for literature and history majors, but even engineers spend semesters on mathematical proofs that never come up on the job.

这对文史专业的学生尤为常见，但即使是工程专业也要花好几个学期的时间做那些工作中从不会出现的数学证明。

Employers reward college degrees primarily because they certify⁷ graduates’ intelligence, work ethic⁸ and sheer conformity⁹.

雇主对大学学历青眼有加是因为学历证明了毕业生的智慧、职业道德和诚信。

So when educational opportunities expand, employers don’t respond by handing every graduate a good job. Instead, they raise the bar.

因此，当教育机会扩大时，雇主不会给每个毕业生一份好工作。相反，标准会提高。

Credential inflation explains why so many of today's young people need a college degree to get the same job their parents got with a high school diploma.

“学历通货膨胀”解释了为什么今天的许多年轻人需要大学文凭才能得到和他们的父母一样的高中文凭工作。

True, cognitively¹⁰ demanding jobs are more common than they were in the 1970s, but they remain fairly rare.

诚然，与上世纪70年代相比，有知识要求的工作更多了，但它们仍然相当罕见。

Secretaries, waiters and the other classic "noncollege" jobs shouldn't require an undergraduate pedigree.

秘书、服务员和其他典型的“非大学”工作不应该要求有本科学历。

As an internet meme quips, "When everyone has a bachelor's degree, no one does."

就像一个网络梗调侃的那样：“当每个人都有学士学位时，就相当于没人有”。

1 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 slashed   

v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减

参考例句：

• Someone had slashed the tyres on my car. 有人把我的汽车轮胎割破了。
• He slashed the bark off the tree with his knife. 他用刀把树皮从树上砍下。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

4 squeak   

n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another squeak out of you!我不想再听到你出声！
• We won the game,but it was a narrow squeak.我们打赢了这场球赛，不过是侥幸取胜。

5 dice   

n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险

参考例句：

• They were playing dice.他们在玩掷骰子游戏。
• A dice is a cube.骰子是立方体。

6 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

7 certify   

vt.证明，证实；发证书(或执照)给

参考例句：

• I can certify to his good character.我可以证明他品德好。
• This swimming certificate is to certify that I can swim one hundred meters.这张游泳证是用以证明我可以游100米远。

8 ethic   

n.道德标准，行为准则

参考例句：

• They instilled the work ethic into their children.他们在孩子们的心中注入了职业道德的理念。
• The connotation of education ethic is rooted in human nature's mobility.教育伦理的内涵根源于人本性的变动性。

9 conformity   

n.一致，遵从，顺从

参考例句：

• Was his action in conformity with the law?他的行动是否合法？
• The plan was made in conformity with his views.计划仍按他的意见制定。

10 cognitively   

参考例句：

• Cognitively,man,the subject of cognition,must classify and categorize the objects. 从认知学角度来看 ，作为认知主体的人对于认知对象必须进行分类和范畴化。 来自互联网
• Cognitively, reference can be studied along with information processing of human mind. 从认知的角度看，要研究人类思维的信息处理过程。 来自互联网