TED英語演講：壓榨學生的大學貸款

曾幾何時在美國上大學不需要揹負債務，而現如今高等教育已然成為了消費品，價格高昂，讓人無力承擔。但與此同時學校和發放貸款的銀行卻因為學生的貸款而獲得巨大的利潤。演講者Samuel提出了一個針對如此現象的解決方案，下面是小編為大家收集關於TED英語演講：壓榨學生的大學貸款，歡迎借鑑參考。

演説題目：How college loans exploit students for profit

演説者：Samuel

Today 40 million Americans are indebted fortheir passage to the new economy. Too poor to pay their way through college,they now owe lenders more than one trillion US dollars. They do find what jobsthey can get to pay off a debt that is secured on their person. In America,even a bankrupt gambler gets a second chance. But it is nearly impossible foran American to get discharged their student loan debts.

現在，四千萬美國人為了奔小康而背上債務 窮到無法支付自己的大學學費，這些人的負債總額已超過一萬億美元。的確，他們能找到工作來償還以個人名義擔保的債務。在美國，即使是破產的賭徒也有重來的機會。但是一個美國人 想要還清其助學貸款卻幾乎是不可能的。

Once upon a time in America, going tocollege did not mean graduating with debt. My friend Paul's father graduatedfrom Colorado State University on the GI Bill. For his generation, highereducation was free or almost free, because it was thought of as a public anymore.

以前在美國，上大學不意味着要負債畢業。我的朋友保羅，他的父親 在退伍軍人法案的幫助下，從科羅拉多州立大學畢業了。他那個時代，高等教育基本上是免費的，因為當時高等教育被認為是一種公益事業。現在不是了。

When Paul also graduated from Colorado State University, he paidfor his English degree by working part-time. 30 years ago, higher educationtuition was affordable, reasonable, and what debts you accumulated, you paidoff by graduation date. Not anymore. Paul's daughter followed in his footsteps,but with one difference: when she graduated five years ago, it was with awhopping debt.

當保羅也從科羅拉多州立大學畢業時，他是通過兼職才拿到了他的英語學位。30年前，高等教育的學費定價合理，大多數人都能支付得起，你欠下的債務在畢業的時候也能還清。現在就不可能了。保羅的女兒遵循父輩的足跡(也去了科羅拉多大學)，有一點不同的是，五年前，她畢業的時候 就揹負了巨大的債務。

Students like Kate have to take on a loanbecause the cost of higher education has become unaffordable for many if notmost American families. But so what? Getting into debt to buy an expensiveeducation is not all bad if you could pay it off with the increased income thatyou earned from it. But that's where the rubber meets the road. Even a collegegrad earned 10 percent more in 20xx than she did in 20xx.

像凱特那樣的孩子只能貸款 因為高等教育的費用 對於大多數家庭來説都難以承受。但那又怎樣呢?如果將來可以賺更多的錢來還債，現在借錢來讀書也是不錯的。但是事實上，20xx年的畢業生 都比20xx年畢業的她收入多出10%。

So ... tuition costs up, public fundingdown, family incomes diminished, personal incomes weak. Is it any wonder thatmore than a quarter of those who must cannot make their student loan payments?The worst of times can be the best of times, because certain truths flash up inways that you can't ignore. I want to speak of three of them today.

所以，學費越來越貴，公共資金支持越來越少，家庭存款越來越少，個人收入越來越低。所以這也難怪為什麼有四分之一的學生 肯定沒有辦法還清他們的助學貸款了吧。最壞的時代也可能是最好的時代，因為你無法忽視很多血淋淋的真相。我今天想説三點。

1.2 trillion dollars of debts for diplomasmake it abundantly obvious that higher education is a consumer product you canbuy. All of us talk about education just as the economists do now, as aninvestment that you make to improve the human stock by training them for an investment you make to sort and classify people so that employers canhire them more easily.

1.2 萬億的助學貸款債務 非常明顯地證明了 高等學位已經變成了 可以購買的消費品。與經濟學家一樣，我們把教育看成是一種通過培訓 來提升人類的投資。是一種將人排序分類從而 幫助僱主挑選人才的投資。

The U.S. News & World Report ranks colleges justas the consumer report rates washing machines. The language is peppered withbarbarisms. Teachers are called "service providers," students arecalled "consumers." Sociology and Shakespeare and soccer and science,all of these are "content."

美國新聞與世界報道對大學進行排名，就像顧客為洗衣機排名一樣。往往措辭犀利教師們被稱為“提供服務者”，學生們則是“消費者”。社會學、莎士比亞、足球和科學 所有這些都是“(商品的)內容”。

Student debt is profitable. Only not onyou. Your debt fattens the profit of the student loan industry. The two800-pound gorillas of which -- Sallie Mae and Navient -- posted last year acombined profit of 1.2 billion dollars. And just like home mortgages, studentloans can be bundled and packaged and sliced and diced, and sold on WallStreet. And colleges and universities that invest in these securitized loansprofit twice. Once from your tuition, and then again from the interest on debt.

學生貸款是有利可圖的，但不是通過學生來實現利潤 你的債務則增加了學生貸款市場的利潤。兩大學生貸款供應商 Sallie Mae and Navient 去年一共賺取12億美元。就像房貸一樣，學生貸款也可以捆綁或分割並在華爾街出售。那些投資於證券化貸款的 大學和學院便可從中獲利兩次，首先是從你繳納的學費 然後再從債務利息中獲利。

With all that money to be made, are wesurprised that some in the higher education business have begun to engage infalse advertising, in bait and switch ... in exploiting the very ignorance thatthey pretend to educate?

有如此可觀的利潤，那麼一些高等教育企業 開始打虛假廣告，通過引誘或偷換概念 來剝削那些毫不知情的，這些企業假裝去“培養”的學生，就毫不稀奇了

Third: diplomas are a brand. Many years agomy teacher wrote, "When students are treated as consumers, they're madeprisoners of addiction and envy." Just as consumers can be sold and resoldupgraded versions of an iPhone, so also people can be sold more and moreeducation. College is the new high school, we already say that. But why stopthere? People can be upsold on certifications and recertifications, master'sdegrees, doctoral degrees.

第三，學位是一種品牌。許多年前我的老師寫到 “當學生被當成消費者，上癮和嫉妒就會應運而生。商家可以不斷將最新款的iPhone賣給消費者，學校也可以向人們兜售教育。大學是新的高中。我們早已深知這點。但是我們就此停止嗎?人們想考取證書、認證新的證書取得碩士、甚至博士學位。

Higher education is also marketed as astatus object. Buy a degree, much like you do a Lexus of a Louis Vuitton bag,to distinguish yourself from others. So you can be the object of envy ofothers. Diplomas are a brand.

高等教育是一種地位象徵。購買一個學位，與買一輛雷克薩斯轎車或一個路易威登包一樣，都能彰顯你的與眾不同。這樣你就可以成為別人羨慕妒忌的對象。文憑是一種品牌。

But these truths are often times hidden bya very noisy sales pitch. There is not a day that goes by without some policyguy on television telling us, "A college degree is absolutely essential toget on that up escalator to a middle-class life." And the usual evidenceoffered is the college premium: a college grad who makes on average 56 percentmore than a high school grad.

然而這些真相通常都被嘈雜的商業宣傳所掩蓋。每一天都有一些講政策的人 在電視上説：”擁有大學學位是過上中產階級的生活的必需品“ 通常此言論的證據是大學溢價：大學畢業生的收入平均 比高中畢業生的收入高出56%

Let's look at that number more carefully,because on the face of it, it seems to belie the stories we all hear aboutcollege grads working as baristas and cashiers. Of 100 people who enroll in anyform of post-secondary education, 45 do not complete it in a timely fashion,for a number of reasons, including financial. Of the 55 that do graduate, twowill remain unemployed, and another 18 are underemployed. So, college gradsearn more than high school grads, but does it pay for the exorbitant tuitionand the lost wages while at college?

讓我們更仔細地看一下統計數據。因為這和我們平時聽到的版本不太一樣 我們通常聽到的是大學畢業生 在咖啡店打工或是做收銀員 每一百名受過中學後教育的人中，有45名學生未能及時畢業，原因各一，也包括經濟因素 而在55位順利畢業的人當中，2位將找不到工作、 18位的才華得不到充分施展。大學畢業生的確比高中畢業生掙得更多，但這真的能支付高昂的學費、抵消大學時期本可用來工作的收入嗎?

Now even economists admit going to collegepays off for only those who complete it. But that's only because high schoolwages have been cut to the bone, for decades now. For decades, workers with ahigh school degree have been denied a fair share of what they have had they received as they should have, then going to college would havebeen a bad investment for many. College premium? I think it's a high school discount.

現在經濟學家甚至都承認 只有對能完成學業的來説，大學才是值得的。但這僅僅是因為幾十年來，高中畢業生的工資少的可憐。幾十年來，擁有高中學歷的人們無法按勞取酬。如果他們得到了自己應有的報酬，那麼對許多人來説，上大學不是個划算的事兒。我想，大學溢價其實是高中折價。

Two out of three people who enroll are notgoing to find an adequate job. And the future, for them, doesn't lookparticularly promising -- in fact, it's downright bleak. And it is they who aregoing to suffer the most punishing forms of student debt. And it is they,curiously and sadly, who are marketed most loudly about this college premiumthing. That's not just cynical marketing, that's cruel.

三分之二的大學生並不能找到適合的工作。前景也並不光明，甚至是徹底的灰暗。而正是這些大學生們，他們將承擔助學貸款的重擔。正是這些大學生們，好奇又有些可悲地，大肆宣揚大學溢價。這樣的市場營銷不僅是諷刺的，更是殘酷的。

So what do we do? What if students andparents treated higher education as a consumer product? Everybody else seemsto. Then, like any other consumer product, you would demand to know what you'repaying for. When you buy medicines, you get a list of side effects. When youbuy a higher educational product, you should have a warning label that allowsconsumers to choose, make informed choices. When you buy a car, it tells youhow many miles per gallon to expect. Who knows what to expect from a degreesay, in Canadian Studies. There is such a thing, by the way.

那麼我們應該怎麼做呢?如果學生和家長把高等教育看成消費品怎麼樣?其他人都是這樣看待的 然後，就像其他的消費產品一樣，你會想要知道你到底購買了什麼產品。當你購買藥物的時候，商家會標出一系列的副作用。當你購買高等教育這個產品時，學校也應該設置提示標語，以供消費者選擇，從而理性購物。當你買汽車時，汽車經銷商會告訴你每加侖油可以行進的英里數。比如，就學位來説，誰都不知道“加拿大研究”能帶來什麼呢。這僅只是一個例子而已。

What if there was an app for that? One thatlinked up the cost of a major to the expected income. Let's call itIncome-Based Tuition or IBT. One of you make this.

如果有一個專門的應用呢?應用將專業的花費和估計的收入聯繫起來，取名為收入基準學費或IBT。在座的就做過類似app。

Discover your reality.

評估你的現實條件。

There are three advantages, three benefitsto Income-Based Tuition. Any user can figure out how much money he or she willmake from a given college and major. Such informed users are unlikely to fallvictim to the huckster's ploy, to the sales pitch. But also to choose would anybody pay more for college than let's say, 15 percent of theadditional income they earn?

根據收入決定學費有三個好處。任何人都可以判斷出 大學學位或專業能夠帶來多少收入。這樣，人們充分了解後，就不會陷於過度的宣傳和推銷中，做出更加明智的選擇。如果大學的學費比將來收入要高出15% 那何苦還要上大學呢?

There's a second benefit to Income-BasedTuition. By tying the cost to the income, college administrators would beforced to manage costs better, to find innovative ways to do so. For instance,all of you students here pay roughly the same tuition for every major. That ismanifestly unfair, and should change. An engineering student uses moreresources and facilities and labs and faculty than a philosophy student.

第二個好處是，將花費與收入相連 也能迫使大學管理者們更好地 想出更多新辦法來控制費用。例如，不同專業的學生學費大概相同 這很明顯是不公平的，需要進行調整。學工程的比學哲學的運用更多資源和設施、 需要更多實驗室和教職工。結果就是哲學專業的學生在補貼着工程專業的學生。

But the philosophy student, as a consequence, is subsidizing the engineeringstudent. Who then, by the way, goes on and earns more money. Why should twopeople buy the same product, pay the same, but one person receive half or athird of the service. In fact, college grads, some majors, pay 25 percent oftheir income servicing their student debt, while others pay five percent. Thatkind if inequity would end when majors are priced more correctly.

但是，誰又掙得更多呢?為什麼兩個人付相同的費用、 買相同的產品，卻有一個人只能獲得一半或三分之一的服務呢?實際上，一些專業的畢業生要拿出25%的工資付學生貸款，而其他專業的學生只需拿出5%。只有將不同專業更適當地定價才能結束這種不平等現象。

Now of course, all this data -- and one ofyou is going to do this, right? All this data has to be well designed, maybeaudited by public accounting firms to avoid statistical lies. We know aboutstatistics, right?

當然，定價的數據，在座的會有人做這個，對吧?定價需要合理設計，也許需要公共會計師事務所來審計 避免統計失誤。我們都對統計略知一二。

But be that as it may, the third andbiggest benefit of Income-Based Tuition, is it would free Americans from thefear and the fact of financial ruin because they bought a defective product.

儘管如此 收入基準學費的第三個，也是最大的好處是，即便人們買了有缺陷的產品 也不會產生消費恐懼或者巨大的經濟負擔。

Perhaps, in time, young and old Americansmay rediscover, as the gentleman said earlier, their curiosity, their love oflearning -- begin to study what they love, love what they study, follow theirpassion ... getting stimulated by their intelligence, follow paths of inquirythat they really want to.

也許，最後 美國人會重新發掘，就如人們之前所説，自己的好奇心和對知識的渴望，會開始學習自己熱愛的，熱愛自己學到的，追隨自己的熱情，用他們的才智，去探索他們真正想了解的。

After all, it was Eric and Kevin, two yearsago, just exactly these kinds of young men, who prompted me and worked with me,and still do, in the study of indebted students in America.

畢竟，兩年前正是Eric和Kevin，這樣的年輕人，給我鼓勵、與我並肩作戰直至今日，研究美國負債學生的情況。

Thank you for your attention.(Applause)

感謝您的傾聽。(掌聲)