Profits and education
利润和教育 Learning the right lessons
吸取正确的教训
There's nothing wrong with profiting from education
从教育中获利没有什么错
From The Economist print edition | Sep 9th 2010
"UNTIL recently, I thought that there would never again be an opportunity to be involved with an industry as socially destructive as the subprime mortgage industry," said Steve Eisman, a hedge-fund manager who made a lot of money during the financial crisis by shorting bank shares, to Congress in June. "I was wrong. The for-profit education industry has proven equal to the task."
六月份，金融危机银行股票大跌时大发其财的对冲基金经理斯蒂夫•艾斯曼在国会说，“直到现在，我认为不会再有卷入象次贷抵押行业那样具有全社会性破坏性行业的机会了。”“我错了，以赢利为目的的教育产业证明其能胜任这一任务”
America's for-profit colleges are under fire (see article), and the Obama administration is preparing tough new regulations for them. Although recent scandals suggest higher education needs to be better regulated, discriminating against the for-profit sector could do wider damage.
美国以赢利为目的的大学正受到猛烈攻击。奥巴马政府正准备对他们施以新的更加严厉的控制。尽管最近风传高等教育才需要更好的加以管理，歧视以赢利为目的的部门将会带来广泛的损失。
The notion that profit is too dirty a motive to be allowed in a business as fine as education is pervasive. Even Britain's Conservatives, determined though they are to introduce radical educational reforms, have drawn the line at allowing for-profit schools to get state funding. America has generally been more liberal; and, with the state and non-profit colleges cutting back, the for-profit sector has been doing startlingly well. In 2008-09 some 3,000 for-profit colleges educated 3.2m students-59% more than three years earlier, and 11.7% of all students.
一个有说服力的看法是：在诸如教育这样美好事情里面承认利润的动机显得过于肮脏。即使是英国的保守党，虽然激进的教育改革是他们引入的，也仍然拒绝以赢利为目的的学校得到国家资助。美国人总体上显得更自由，并且，伴随着州政府和非盈利性大学的削减，以赢利为目的的部门进展顺利让人吃惊。在2008-2009年期间，大约有3000所以赢利为目的的大学培养了320万的学生——比三年前多出59%，占学生总数的11.7%。
Yet recent government reports suggest that some of these colleges have a troublingly familiar business model: flogging a low-grade product to people who are paying with subsidised government loans. The Department of Education reported that most students at many of these universities were defaulting on their loans. Similarly, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that even leading for-profit colleges such as Kaplan and the University of Phoenix had engaged in dodgy practices to recruit students and encourage them to borrow large sums to pay for their courses.
然而，最近的政府报告暗示其中一部分这样的大学的日常商业模式让人头疼：向得到政府借贷资助的人们出售低劣的产品。教育部报告说，大多数在这样大学里的学生都拖欠他们的借款。同样地，一份政府责任办公室调查发现：即便象Kaplan大学、凤凰大学这样主要的以赢利为目的的大学，都卷入危险性的实践：招募学生并鼓励他们为自己的课程借大笔的款。
Among the most contentious of the new rules due to be introduced on November 1st is a "gainful employment" requirement that would make a course eligible for government loans only if enough current or past students are repaying their loans. The for-profit colleges maintain that they have high drop-out rates because their students are poorer than those in the state and non-profit sector, and that the gainful-employment rule will simply reduce access to higher education for poorer people. Don Graham, boss of the Washington Post Company, which owns Kaplan, has suggested that private colleges should be required to refund all fees if a student decides to drop out during his first term in order to "drive out all the bad actors" from the industry.
在11月1日将被引进的众多新规定当中，最富争议的是“唯利是图的雇用”规定。该规定使得政府的做法具备合法性，即：只有在当前的、过去的学生偿还了贷款之后，政府才能借贷。以赢利为目的的大学声称，因为他们的学生比那些州里的或非盈利部门的学生穷，他们的辍学率很高，并且，“唯利是图的雇用”规定将完全减少穷人进入高等教育的机会。旗下拥有Kaplan大学的华盛顿邮报老板Don Graham建议，如果学生为了从这个行业“驱逐恶棍”，决定在第一学期就辍学，学校必须返还所有费用。
Constructive suggestions are rare in a debate that has mixed a lot of rhetorical cant with a big principle. The cant is more obvious. The American right cites Barack Obama's proposals as another sign that he hates capitalism. Yet not only abuses plainly occurred but for-profit colleges are hardly poster children for free enterprise: they are already heavily regulated, not least because most of the loans to students are provided by the government. The left, from its non-profit redoubts, claims that these are big businesses exploiting the little guy.
夹杂有大的规范和空洞华丽、言不由衷话语的争论很少会产生建设性建议。言不由衷是显而易见的。美国右派们引用奥巴马的提议作为另一个他憎恨资本主义的信号。然而不仅出现了明显的辱骂，一些以赢利为目的的大学也几乎不对孩子们宣传自由企业制度：他们已经被严重管制了，不仅仅是因为大多数给学生的贷款是由政府提供的。非盈利阵地里的左派们则称，这是大企业剥削小员工。
The principle? Concentrate on the quality of the education, not the ownership. All sorts of colleges seem to have been guilty of shabby marketing. They should be treated the same. Good rules-such as Mr Graham's one-should apply to non-profit and for-profit colleges alike. Singling out for-profits for special attention risks depriving students, and America at large, of the full benefits in innovation and cost-effectiveness that the profit motive has generally brought to higher education. That really would be "socially destructive".
规范是什么呢？将思想集中在教育质量上面，而不是所有权上面。一切形式的大学似乎都对卑鄙的营销感到内疚。他们应该受到同等的对待。好的规定——如Graham先生的那种——应该同样适用与赢利性和非赢利性大学。挑选赢利性大学作为靶子将冒失去学生的风险，并且美国人在很大程度上，受益于创新和成本效用，利益驱动已经广泛地进入高等教育领域。那才真的是“社会性的毁灭”。
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