Today 40 million Americans are indebted for their 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 jobs they 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 for an American to get discharged their student loan debts.
現今有四千萬個美國人 在通往新型經濟的道路上負債。 因為無法承擔大學學費, 他們欠債權人的錢超過一兆美元。 他們得做任何工作, 來償還鎖死在他們身上的債務。 在美國, 即使是一個破產的賭徒 都有二次機會。 但對一個美國人而言, 想清償他的學生貸款, 幾乎是不可能的。
Once upon a time in America, going to college did not mean graduating with debt. My friend Paul's father graduated from Colorado State University on the GI Bill. For his generation, higher education was free or almost free, because it was thought of as a public good. Not anymore. When Paul also graduated from Colorado State University, he paid for his English degree by working part-time. 30 years ago, higher education tuition was affordable, reasonable, and what debts you accumulated, you paid off 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 a whopping debt.
曾幾何時, 在美國上大學不等於舉債。 我的朋友保羅的父親, 畢業於科羅拉多州立大學 主修美國軍事法。 在他父親的那個世代, 高等教育幾乎是免費的, 因為大家公認教育是有意義的。 但好景不再, 當保羅從科羅拉多州立大學 的英語科系畢業, 他必須得打工償還他的學貸。 三十年前, 高等教育的學費是 大家都負擔的起的合理費用, 你累計的債務, 在你畢業那天就會償還完畢。 再也不是如此了。 保羅的女兒步上了他的後塵, 但有一點不同: 五年前她畢業的時候, 背負了龐大的債務。
Students like Kate have to take on a loan because the cost of higher education has become unaffordable for many if not most American families. But so what? Getting into debt to buy an expensive education is not all bad if you could pay it off with the increased income that you earned from it. But that's where the rubber meets the road. Even a college grad earned 10 percent more in 2001 than she did in 2013.
像凱特這樣的學生,必須貸款, 因為高等教育的學費飆漲到 大部分的美國家庭都負擔不起。 那又怎樣? 如果教育增加的收入, 能夠償還昂貴教育欠下的債務 也不錯啊! 但出社會後,才見真章。 2001年的大學畢業生, 竟然比 2013 的大學畢業生 收入多了一成。
So ... tuition costs up, public funding down, family incomes diminished, personal incomes weak. Is it any wonder that more 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 in ways that you can't ignore. I want to speak of three of them today.
所以... 學費上漲、 公共預算下降、 家庭收入減低、 個人收入變少。 有沒有人想過為什麼有 超過四分之一的學生, 無力償還他們的助學貸款? 最壞的時機, 也許就是最好的轉機, 我們必須面對顯而易見的事實。 我今天要舉出三件事。
1.2 trillion dollars of debts for diplomas make it abundantly obvious that higher education is a consumer product you can buy. All of us talk about education just as the economists do now, as an investment that you make to improve the human stock by training them for work. As an investment you make to sort and classify people so that employers can hire them more easily. The U.S. News & World Report ranks colleges just as the consumer report rates washing machines. The language is peppered with barbarisms. Teachers are called "service providers," students are called "consumers." Sociology and Shakespeare and soccer and science, all of these are "content."
第一:畢業文憑的 1.2 兆美金債務 很明顯地告訴了大家, 高等教育是一種消費商品。 我們現在談論教育的方法, 更像經濟學家, 把訓練學生就業, 改善人力儲備, 視為一種投資。 把學生分門別類,視為一種投資, 好讓雇主可以更容易地聘僱他們。 美國新聞和各國媒體, 給學校的排名, 就像在消費者報導裡面, 評論哪個洗衣機更好一樣。 報告裡充斥著野蠻的用詞, 老師是“服務業”, 學生被稱為“消費者“, 社會學、莎士比亞文學、 足球、科學 這些都變成了”內容“。
Student debt is profitable. Only not on you. Your debt fattens the profit of the student loan industry. The two 800-pound gorillas of which -- Sallie Mae and Navient -- posted last year a combined profit of 1.2 billion dollars. And just like home mortgages, student loans can be bundled and packaged and sliced and diced, and sold on Wall Street. And colleges and universities that invest in these securitized loans profit twice. Once from your tuition, and then again from the interest on debt.
助學貸款的利益豐厚, 但利益不歸於學生。 學生的債務養肥了學貸產業。 兩個龐大的貸款公司大猩猩 — Sallie Mae 和 Navient 貸款公司—— 去年的整體獲利高達 12 億美金。 跟房貸一樣, 學生貸款可以被包裝、 分割成衍生性金融產品 在華爾街販賣。 學院跟大學 在這些抵押貸款證劵化的業務上 扒了學生兩層皮。 一次從你的學費, 之後從你的貸款利息。
With all that money to be made, are we surprised that some in the higher education business have begun to engage in false advertising, in bait and switch ... in exploiting the very ignorance that they pretend to educate?
這些賺來的錢, 難道大家都不驚訝, 辦高等教育的這件事 已經開始與不實廣告、 偷樑換柱的行為扯在一起了... 假裝辦教育的名義, 行壓榨無知學生之實?
Third: diplomas are a brand. Many years ago my teacher wrote, "When students are treated as consumers, they're made prisoners of addiction and envy." Just as consumers can be sold and resold upgraded versions of an iPhone, so also people can be sold more and more education. College is the new high school, we already say that. But why stop there? People can be upsold on certifications and recertifications, master's degrees, doctoral degrees.
第三: 學歷是一種名牌。 好幾年前我的老師曾經寫道, “當學生被當作消費者, 他們便成為妒意與癮頭的囚徒"。 就像消費者一直購買升級 不同版本的 iPhone 手機一樣, 學生也得購買越來越多的教育商品。 我們已經聽過, “專科學校變成了高中”的說法。 何不變本加厲? 我們可以不斷推銷各種證書、 認證再認證、 碩士學位、博士學位。
Higher education is also marketed as a status 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 of others. Diplomas are a brand.
高等教育也被視為 一種身分的表徵。 買個學歷, 就像你買 Lexus,LV 包一樣, 可以彰顯你的與眾不同, 讓你成為大家忌妒的對象。 文憑變成了一種名牌。
But these truths are often times hidden by a very noisy sales pitch. There is not a day that goes by without some policy guy on television telling us, "A college degree is absolutely essential to get on that up escalator to a middle-class life." And the usual evidence offered is the college premium: a college grad who makes on average 56 percent more than a high school grad.
但這些真相, 被各種喧鬧的銷售話術所掩蓋, 幾乎每一天 你都能聽到電視上的名嘴說, “大學學歷是不可或缺的, 有了它你才能晉升到 中產階級的生活" 他們舉出的數據通常是 「大學溢酬」: 大學畢業生平均賺的錢 比高中生高56%的那種大學畢業生。
Let's look at that number more carefully, because on the face of it, it seems to belie the stories we all hear about college grads working as baristas and cashiers. Of 100 people who enroll in any form 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, two will remain unemployed, and another 18 are underemployed. So, college grads earn more than high school grads, but does it pay for the exorbitant tuition and the lost wages while at college?
讓我們仔細檢視一下這些數據, 表面上, 似乎不同於我們一般聽說的 大學畢業生去賣咖啡和結帳的事實。 在一百個進入專科大學的學生裡, 有 45 位無法在正常時間內完成學業, 原因很多,包括財務。 55 位的畢業生裡, 2 個會一直沒有工作, 18 個在打工。 是的,大學畢業生賺的比高中畢業生多, 但這些所得能夠補足昂貴的學費, 和在學時損失的工資嗎?
Now even economists admit going to college pays off for only those who complete it. But that's only because high school wages have been cut to the bone, for decades now. For decades, workers with a high school degree have been denied a fair share of what they have produced. And had they received as they should have, then going to college would have been a bad investment for many. College premium? I think it's a high school discount.
就連經濟學家都承認, 專科和大學是值得的: 前提是你必須畢業。 而且主要理由是高中畢業生 過去幾10年來的薪資 被砍到見骨了。 這幾10年來, 高中畢業生, 他們的付出沒有得到相對的報酬, 也因為他們沒有得到相對應的報酬, 所以跑去上大學,但對很多人來說, 上大學根本不是一個很好的投資。 「大學溢酬」嗎? (專科大學畢業生與他人的薪資所得差距) 在我看來,那只是從高中生 那邊奪來的收入。
Two out of three people who enroll are not going to find an adequate job. And the future, for them, doesn't look particularly promising -- in fact, it's downright bleak. And it is they who are going to suffer the most punishing forms of student debt. And it is they, curiously and sadly, who are marketed most loudly about this college premium thing. That's not just cynical marketing, that's cruel.
三分之二的專科大學生 不會找到適當的工作, 未來對他們來說,似乎也不樂觀—— 實際上,前途黯淡, 這三分之二的人 他們所背負的學貸是最殘忍的。 這三分之二的人, 意外而悲哀地, 最容易被「大學溢酬」這個概念吸引。 這種推銷手法不僅冷酷, 而且無情。
So what do we do? What if students and parents treated higher education as a consumer product? Everybody else seems to. Then, like any other consumer product, you would demand to know what you're paying for. When you buy medicines, you get a list of side effects. When you buy a higher educational product, you should have a warning label that allows consumers to choose, make informed choices. When you buy a car, it tells you how many miles per gallon to expect. Who knows what to expect from a degree say, in Canadian Studies. There is such a thing, by the way.
所以,我們該怎麼做? 要是每個學生及家長都把高等教育 視為一種消費產品,那又如何? 這彷彿是不可爭的事實。 那麼,不如像其他消費產品一樣, 你會想要知道你到底買了甚麼東西。 當你去買藥的時候, 你能看到會有什麼副作用。 當你購買高等教育產品時, 也應該有個警告標示, 讓消費者在資訊透明下, 可以做出明智的選擇。 當你購買一輛車, 它會告訴你一加侖 大概可以跑幾英哩。 像是主修“加拿大學”, 的預期薪資是怎樣的。 這可不是我信口胡謅的。
What if there was an app for that? One that linked up the cost of a major to the expected income. Let's call it Income-Based Tuition or IBT. One of you make this.
要是有一個 APP 程式呢? 一個可以把主修科目 與未來收入連結的程式。 我們先叫它做 "以未來收入為基礎的學費"或"IBT"。 你們其中一個人要做...
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Discover your reality.
挖掘真相。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
There are three advantages, three benefits to Income-Based Tuition. Any user can figure out how much money he or she will make from a given college and major. Such informed users are unlikely to fall victim to the huckster's ploy, to the sales pitch. But also to choose wisely. Why would anybody pay more for college than let's say, 15 percent of the additional income they earn?
它有三個優點, IBT 有三個優點。 任何人都可以找出 主修科目與未來收入的相關性。 這樣的使用者就不會掉入 銷售人員的花言巧語 與銷售手段。 可以更明智地選擇。 應該不會有人為了 增加15%的收入而進專科大學吧?
There's a second benefit to Income-Based Tuition. By tying the cost to the income, college administrators would be forced 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 is manifestly unfair, and should change. An engineering student uses more resources and facilities and labs and faculty than a philosophy student. But the philosophy student, as a consequence, is subsidizing the engineering student. Who then, by the way, goes on and earns more money. Why should two people buy the same product, pay the same, but one person receive half or a third of the service. In fact, college grads, some majors, pay 25 percent of their income servicing their student debt, while others pay five percent. That kind if inequity would end when majors are priced more correctly.
IBT 第二個優點: 一旦把學費和未來收入一起評估, 管理大學的主事者, 就會被迫把成本管理地更好, 找到更有創意的方式來辦教育。 舉例, 這裡全部的學生,不管主修哪一科, 都支付一樣的學費。 這相當不公平,所以要改變。 工程系學生使用的設備、 實驗室、教職員的資源肯定比 哲學系學生多。 但最後好像是哲學系學生在補貼 工程系學生學費一樣。 但後者的收入是比較好的。 為什麼兩個人購買了相同的產品、 支付同樣的費用、 但其中一個人卻只收到 一半或三分之一的服務。 事實上,大學畢業生, 有一些主修科目, 要多支付 25% 的收入 給他們的債權人, 而其他主修科目要支付 5% 。 當這修主修科目價格修正後, 這種不平等現象才會終結。
Now of course, all this data -- and one of you is going to do this, right? All this data has to be well designed, maybe audited by public accounting firms to avoid statistical lies. We know about statistics, right?
當然,有了這些數據 你們其中一個人要去做,好嗎? 這些數據要好好地設計, 可能需要公立的會記單位 來審計監督, 避免統計騙局。 我們都知道那是怎麼回事吧?
But be that as it may, the third and biggest benefit of Income-Based Tuition, is it would free Americans from the fear and the fact of financial ruin because they bought a defective product.
但暫且不談。 第三個 BIT 的優點: 它會把美國人從購買了不良商品 造成的財務問題中解救出來。
Perhaps, in time, young and old Americans may rediscover, as the gentleman said earlier, their curiosity, their love of learning -- begin to study what they love, love what they study, follow their passion ... getting stimulated by their intelligence, follow paths of inquiry that they really want to.
也許,有一天, 老一輩跟年輕一輩的 美國人會再度發現, 如同之前那位先生說的, 再度找回他們的好奇心、 對學習的熱愛-- 念他們喜歡念的、 讀他們喜歡讀的... 追隨他們的熱情, 被他們自己的天份所激勵, 挖掘自己想問的問題。
After all, it was Eric and Kevin, two years ago, 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.
別忘了,這是艾利克跟凱文, 兩年前, 懷抱著現在年輕人一樣的夢想, 來找我幫忙、一起工作, 到現在仍堅持著 研究如何讓美國學生擺脫債務。
Thank you for your attention.
感謝各位的聆聽。
(Applause)
(掌聲)