The Economist-20241123期「Leaders」Higher education: Diminishing returns
02 全文梳理
【para1】学位激增👉年轻人不再满足于学士学位，美国和英国的研究生教育需求大增。
【para2】硕士热潮👉硕士课程因就业需要而备受追捧，但许多学生仅因竞争环境趋于激烈而追求更高学历。
【para3-4】盲目追求硕士学位的隐患
-para3 回报有限👉研究发现部分硕士学位对收入的提升作用甚微，甚至带来经济负担。
-para4 债务隐患👉高昂学费和低效课程让许多学生背负沉重债务，而政府贷款和减免政策加重了财政负担。
【para5-6】两大应对措施
-para5 调整政策👉政府应调整政策，避免研究生教育市场扭曲。
-para6 提升信息透明度👉政府应公开如不同专业回报率、辍学率和未来收入的具体数据，以帮助学生做出明智选择。
【para7】规范改革👉美国尝试通过新规要求高校警示低收益、高负债课程，其他国家也应考虑类似政策。
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Higher education: Diminishing returns
The benefits of doing a master's degree are smaller than they appear
Higher education: Diminishing returns
The benefits of doing a master's degree are smaller than they appear
[5] Governments should respond in two ways. First, they should abandon policies that are distorting the market for postgraduate study. America does not limit what it will lend postgraduates for tuition fees. This blank cheque has created a culture of profligacy in which universities raise fees, obliterating the financial returns students might ultimately make. Britain has also slipped up, though in a different and sneaky way. For a decade it has mostly declined to let universities increase fees for undergraduates, even as inflation has caused their costs to rise. In order to make up for that financial shortfall, vice-chancellors have vastly expanded expensive postgraduate programmes, some of which are of dubious quality.
[6] The second priority for governments should be to give students the data they need to make better choices. A chasm divides the riches that flow from getting the most lucrative master’s, such as in computer science, from the meagre returns of English or film studies. Fees vary wildly by institution, even for very similar programmes. And yet people shopping for postgraduate education find it much harder to get hold of information—on matters such as drop-out rates or probable future earnings—than people applying for their first degrees.
Masterstroke
[7] America is trying to change this. Under new rules, graduate colleges may soon be compelled to warn applicants before they sign up for courses that have a record of saddling students with low wages and high debts. Donald Trump, who likes to lambast college presidents, should make sure these changes take place. And regulators in other countries should consider similar schemes. Higher education ought to make students brainier and richer. It too often fails to do either. ■每天一篇经济学人团队
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