硕士学位：教育军备竞赛还是人生陷阱？ | 经济学人社论

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经济学人社论 | 教育效益递减

研究生学费高昂，但收效成疑

政府应该助力研究生获得更高质量的课程

For young people with big ambitions, bagging a measly bachelor’s degree no longer seems enough. Students in America have been rushing into postgraduate courses, even as demand for higher education among the general public has declined. These days nearly 40% of university-educated Americans boast at least two degrees. In Britain a surge in demand from foreign students has created a huge boom in postgraduate education. Universities there now dole out four postgraduate qualifications for every five undergraduate ones.

对于满怀壮志的年轻人来说，学士学位似乎已不足以维持体面。尽管大众对高等教育的需求有所下降，但美国学生仍在争相攻读研究生课程。如今，近四成受过大学教育的美国人拥有至少两个学位。在英国，外国学生需求的激增带来了研究生教育的火热，大学授予的本科学历数量和硕士学历数量之比达到了5:4。

Master’s degrees lasting one or two years are the biggest draw. These courses are necessary for jobs, such as teaching in academia, that are appealing even if poorly paid. Yet many of the people who enroll in postgraduate study are taking part in an educational arms race. Now that undergraduate degrees are common, goes the thinking, it takes extra credentials to get ahead. The hope is that advanced qualifications will boost all manner of careers.

一年或两年制的硕士学位最具吸引力。如果想要从事高校老师等工作，往往需要硕士学历。这些工作尽管收入偏低，却依然颇具吸引力。然而，许多读研的学生实际上是在参与一场“教育军备竞赛”。有人认为，既然本科生已经遍地都是，想要出人头地就需要继续深造，并寄希望于更高的学历能够促进各类职业的发展。

That is often a mistake. New data are helping researchers compare the earnings of postgraduates with those of peers who are equally bright but have only a bachelor’s degree. One analysis suggests that more than 40% of America’s master’s courses provide graduates with no financial return or leave them worse off, after considering costs and what they might have earned anyway. A study in Britain concludes that completing a master’s has, on average, almost no effect on earnings by the time graduates are 35.

这往往不能成立。研究人员正利用新数据对那些天资相似、但学历不同的同龄人的薪资进行比较分析，他们当中有一部分人只拿到本科学历，另一部分选择了深造读研。分析表明，在考虑了教育成本及深造期间潜在的收入损失之后，超过四成的美国硕士学位课程并未为毕业生带来任何经济收益，甚至可能让他们的经济状况雪上加霜。英国一项研究也得出了类似的结论，即平均来看，硕士学位对于毕业生在35岁时的收入影响微乎其微。

Dreadful returns to lofty qualifications should worry students and politicians alike. Governments are right to think that investing in skills can pep up growth—but not when universities are flabby and inefficient. It is not just students who suffer if poor courses burden them with outrageous debts; taxpayers do, too. About half the money the American government lends to students each year is for postgraduate degrees. Generous repayment and forgiveness schemes mean a big chunk of that will never be repaid.

高学历低回报这一现象应该让学生和政客们都感到担忧。政府认为，投资技能培训可以促进经济增长，这一思路无疑是正确的——但在大学教育质量参差不齐、效率低下的情况下，这一策略却难以奏效。如果低效课程让学生负债累累，那么受害者不仅是学生，还有纳税人。美国政府每年向学生提供的贷款中有近半数是用于资助研究生教育，另外还推行了慷慨的还款减免和债务豁免计划，这意味着很大一部分贷款可能最终成为死账。

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.

政府应该从两方面着手解决。第一，一些政策过度干预了研究生教育的市场，政府应该予以废止。美国不设定研究生学费贷款上限，导致大学肆无忌惮地提高学费。学生即使还清贷款，最终也难以从研究生教育中获得实质性的经济回报。英国也面临类似问题，只是方式更为隐蔽。十年来，通胀导致办学成本升高，但英国政府却不允许大学上调本科生学费。为弥补资金缺口，英国校长只好扩招学费高昂的研究生项目，其中有些质量堪忧，沦为“水硕”。

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.

第二，政府应为学生提供必要的数据，帮助学生更好决策。不同专业的经济回报差异显著，计算机科学专业最能赚钱，而英语和影视研究专业的回报则非常有限。即便是类似的研究生项目，在不同院校的学费也可能相差悬殊。但相比申请第一个学位，获取与研究生项目相关信息却难得多。例如，辍学率是多少？未来薪资水平如何？

“研究”对策

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.

美国正试图扭转这一局面。针对某些专业毕业生收入低、学债高的现象，新规要求研究生院校必须提前警示申请者这些专业可能存在的风险。向来喜欢炮轰大学校长的特朗普上任后可能会推动落实这些规定。其他国家的监管机构也在考虑类似的改革。高等教育本应帮助学生学富双全，但最终却往往竹篮打水一场空。

翻译组：

Jessie，女，翻译界林黛玉，想被人叫大佬

Cassie，ECNU口译小菜鸡，体制内摸爬滚打教书匠

校对组：

Lucian，医学翻译，灵魂在杰作中冒险

Rex，The one who widens your English~

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