Josipa Roksa and Richard Arum track the same Class of 2009 students they studied in their 2011 book,"Academically Adrift," in a new work that examines that cohort’s success—or lack of it—after college.

Josipa Roksa和Richard Arum在他们2011年出的书，《学术漂浮》中记录了2009级同一个班的学生，在这个新的项目中测试了同龄者在毕业后的成功或者失败。

In times like these, data points get wielded like cudgels.Student-loan debt tops$1-trillion. As many as half of recent graduates are out of work, earn trifling wages, or have jobs that don’t require college degrees. Clearly, such numbers suggest, college isn’t worthwhile.

在这样的年代，数据带给人的震惊就好像给人当头一棒。学生贷款债务占据1万亿美元，这和那些几乎一半的应届毕业生待业，赚微乎其微的工资，或者找到了一份根本不需要大学文凭的工作的学生一样多。显然，这些数字都在说明读大学是一件不值得的事情。

At the same time, remedies forwhat ails the economy often invoke higher education as a solution. Policy makers and foundations want more people toearn post secondary degrees because they increase wages. Politicians presscolleges to align programs with the needs of industry. Together these sentiments show how deeplyintertwined higher education and the economy have grown.

与此同时，那些让经济变得更糟的措施通常会把高等教育列入解决措施之中。政策制定者以及基金会希望更多的人能获得高等教育文凭因为这样可以增加他们的收入。政客们强调大学教育和企业对于人才的需求是一致的。总之，这些情感都展示了高等教育是如何与经济发展相联系的。

As colleges have soldthemselves as economic-development vehicles, and their degrees as tickets tothe middle class, the ethos of the marketplace has become their master,overshadowing their civic and intellectual purposes.

既然大学已经把它们自己出售给经济作为发展工具，并且把它们的文凭作为进入中产阶级的入场券，把市场的社会思潮变成了它们的大师，这些都掩盖了大学所追求的文化和智能的目标。

The tight embrace of higher education and the economy has an obvious downside: When times get tough, colleges take a beating.Predictably,tales emerge of recent graduates with expensive and worthless degrees failing to make their wayinto adulthood. They come from many of the same colleges, we are told, that arethe envy of the world.

高等教育和经济的紧密结合显然是有弊端的：当时代越来越困难，大学将要承受打击。显而易见，大量持有昂贵但是低价值文凭的应届毕业生的出现会使他们不如成年的过程失败。他们很多来自相同的学校，我们明白，他们就是这个世界的佼佼者。

As college costs increase, so do expectations about payoff and questions about value. How should colleges be judged, if not by the financial success of their students? Is it higher education’s job to fix the economy?

当大学越来越贵，所以人们会期待未来的薪水并且会怀疑价值以上的问题。如何不能从学生财务上成功与否看待，那要如何评判一所学校呢？有更好教育的人的工作就能修正经济的发展吗？

These questions suffuse Aspiring Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions of College Graduates, the new book by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. The authors track and interview many of the same students from their 2011 book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, which documented 2009 graduates’ meager gains in learning during college. As they graduate and try to find jobs and a foothold in the adult world, many of them struggle, the authors find.

这些问题充斥在《有抱负的漂流的成年人》这本书中：这是Richard Arum 和Josipa Roksa的新书，大学毕业生的短暂过度。作者跟踪并且采访了一些在他们2011年的书---《学术漂流：大学校园学习的有限性》中的学生：这记录了2009级毕业生在校园学习中微薄的进步。当这些学生毕业后努力找工作，在成人世界占据一个立足点时，作者发现其中的大部分人都在挣扎。

Mr. Arum, a professor of sociology and education at New York University, and Ms. Roksa, an associate professor in the same disciplines at the University of Virginia, did not restrict themselves to economic measures in forming their conclusions. They analyzed their subjects’ civic engagement, living situations, and relationships,and connected many of those measures to how much the students learned during college.

纽约大学社会和教育教授---Mr.Arum以及维吉尼亚大学社会和教育副教授---Ms. Roksa，却并没有把自己局限在经济压力中得出结论。他们分析自己课程的公民参与度，现实状况，关系，以及所涉及的其他方法来展现学生们在大学究竟学习得到了什么。

Video: Lack of Rigor in College Often Means Trouble Later for Students, Say Authors

A chapter dedicated to economic metrics, like employment status and income, provides some of the most striking data, including a finding that students who performed poorly on a test of critical-thinking skills were more likely than those who scored well to have lost their jobs.

视频：缺乏严格教育的大学会给学生带来后续麻烦，有一个章节专门致力于经济度量，比如就业状况和收入。这提供了一系列最显著的数据，包括发现了那些在批判性思维上较弱的学生比其他学生更容易失业。

The book also includes stories about the students themselves, distilled from interviews with 80 graduates. Two of the narratives show how economic metrics often fail to account for the quirks of personality and fate that can determine the trajectories of individual lives, and how colleges are both essential actors and bit players in that journey.

这本书也包括了从80为毕业生面试者中提取的关于学生们自己的故事。其中两个阐述者展现了经济度量值是如何不能解释性格并且命运才能决定个体生命的轨迹。以及大学是如何对演员和特约演员在生涯中产生重要性。

"Nathan" kicks off the book. He is a business-administration major, a field whose graduates tend to get high-paying jobs fairly quickly. Nathan wasn’t so lucky. Two years after graduating, he still lived with his parents and was making deliveries for a national pharmacy chain, earning less than $20,000 a year. He found his job onCraigslist, not through any resources from his college.

“纳森”翻开了这本书。他主修企业管理，那个专业的学生基本上毕业后可以很快获得高薪工作。纳森却并不是这么幸运。毕业两年后，他依然和自己的父母生活并且为一个国家制药链做运输，一年挣不到2万美元。他先发现自己的工作基于克雷格列表，而不是通过自己在大学中所学。

His sputtering progress after college was fore shadowed by his choices during it, Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa write. Nathan coasted, focusing more on socializing than on academics. He studied mostly with his friends, doing so alone for just five hours a week. When asked to name a significant academic experience, he at first couldn’t think of one. Still,Nathan graduated with a 3.9 grade-point average.

Mr. Arum和Ms.Roksa写道：他在毕业后的选择预示着他的失败过程。纳森将更多的注意放在社交上掩盖了学术。他更多的是和朋友们一起学习，一周只有5个小时自己完成作业。当他被问及最成功的一次学术经验时，他竟然不能在第一时间想到任何一次。虽然，纳森是以3.9的GPA毕业的。

"Beth," a first-generation college student, offers a contrast. She majored in what is described as a rigorous health-related program. Like business, such majors tend to quickly result in jobs that pay well.

贝斯，第一代大学毕业生，提供了一个相反的例子。她主修的是被称为极其严格的与健康相关的项目。和商务很想，这些专业很容易获得高薪水工作。

Beth took advantage of what college had to offer. She reported working hard, dedicating more than 20 hours each week to studying alone, while also gaining practical experience in a hospital. Beth was engaged, both in and outside class. Unprompted, she described a course in the history of Islamic civilization as academically stimulating and said her membership on the rowing team was demanding and eye-opening. Her gain on a standardized test of critical-thinking skills was nearly double the average.

贝斯将她在大学期间所学作为优势。她报告道自己辛苦学习，致力于每周单独学习至少20个小时，同时在医院获得实践经验。贝斯参与了课内课外的活动。自发地，她提起了伊斯兰文明历史的课程作为学术的激励并且表示她这个组的队员都是要求很高而且对他人有启发性的。在一次批判性思考技巧的标准测试中，她得到的分数几乎是平均分数的两倍。

In other words, Beth did everything right. Four months after graduation, however, she found her selfliving at home, rejected for more than 50 jobs.

换而言之，贝斯每一件事情都做对了。在毕业后的四个月，然后，她拒绝了至少50个工作并且仍然待在家中。

After interviewing several times for a job for which she lacked clinical experience, she made a direct appeal. "I think I finally got to a point where I just straight-out said,‘You know what, I just need someone to give me a chance to prove myself and that I can be a valuable employee to your department,’ " she told the researchers. She got the job.

在面试了几次她缺少就诊经验的工作之后，她直接表示：“我想我到了最后的关键点，我会直接说，‘你知道我只是需要有人能给我一个机会证明我自己能够为这个机构作出贡献，’”她告诉这些实验者。她最后得到了一份工作。

"Beth’s story exemplifies many aspects of the constructive role that four-year colleges and universities can play in the lives of young adults," Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa write. Why,they wonder, aren’t there more stories like hers?

“贝斯的故事证明了在一些有建设性角色的方面，四年的本科学习在年轻人的生活中还是起了作用，” Mr. Arum和Ms.Roksa在书中写到。他们想知道为什么这样的故事就不能多一些呢？

Part of the problem, they argue, is that colleges like Nathan’s make it too easy to be lazy and still get a nearly perfect GPA. But how much of Nathan’s failure to be engaged was his own doing? If his professors had given him more C’s, would that have woken him up, or would he have greeted those marks with a shrug?

他们说道这其中的一部分问题是那些像纳森所在的学校一样，他们很懒却还是能以优异的成绩毕业。但是纳森的失败有多少成分归结于他自己身上呢？如果他的教授们给他更多的C，会让他更清醒或者只是让他在面对的时候耸耸肩？

It’s also not clear exactly how much Beth’s college contributed to her success. She praises her "solidup bringing" for teaching her the value of discipline and hard work. How much of her success was due to her attitude and persistence—traits ingrained before she arrived in college? And it wasn’t really her skills or degree that got her hired; it was her ability to persuade her future boss she deserved a shot. Who should get credit for her gumption?

至于贝斯的大学在多大程度上引导了她的成功并不是很清楚。她奖励了教会自己规矩的重要性和努力工作的“坚实的教育”。她的成功有多少成分是因为她的态度和坚持---那些在她上大学前就固有的品质？并且这不仅仅是她的技能或者文凭就可以使她获得一份工作，而是贝斯说服未来老板她值得这份工作的能力。这份进取心应该是谁的努力呢？

For now, our main way of evaluating the knowledge and skills that graduates developed in college is to look at their wages and employment rates. When focused on narrow windows of time, such measures can make for inhospitable terrain for higher education.

现在，我们评价大学生在学校获取的知识和技能最主要的方式是看他们的工资和就业率。当关注时代的狭隘窗户时，这些准则变成了更高级教育中黑暗的地带。

Unemployment among workers under 25 is high by historical standards, and the pay for those who do have jobs is often low, which suggests that colleges have reason to fear efforts like the Obama administration’s to rate them, in part, by the wages of their graduates.

历史的标准强调了25岁以下工作者的失业，并且那些已经在工作的人获得的薪水还是很低。这说明了那些大学有理由畏惧类似奥巴马政府评估他们毕业生的工资状况。

Mr. Arum and Ms. Roksa found that 53 percent of the graduates they studied earned less than $30,000 a year in part-time or full-time jobs, or had no work at all. But the authors think measures like those proposed by the president can be too narrow or misleading as a way to judge colleges; some graduates, for example, might hold low-paying jobs that benefit society. "The wages don’t look good, but it doesn’t mean they’re not producing or civically engaged," Ms. Roksa said in an interview.

Mr. Arum和Ms.Roksa发现他们研究的53%的毕业生在全职或者兼职的工作中年薪少于3万美元，或者他们根本就还没有工作。但是作者认为那些校长建议的评估大学的方法都太狭隘或者具有误导性。比如一些毕业生，也许会得到一些有利于社会的低薪工作。“这个工资也许不是很好，但是这并不是说它们就不生产或者没有社会参与度，”Ms. Roksa在一次面试中提到。

Still, they think colleges do bear some responsibility for helping students find a career path. "The habits students leave college with are shaped by the four years colleges spend interacting with them," said Mr. Arum.

他们仍然觉得大学确实在帮助学生发现事业道路上做出了贡献。“互相学习的大学四年生活确实塑造了那些学生们离开了学校还保留的习惯，”Mr. Arum说。

Finding that path often takes a while because many recent graduates settle in new cities and need time to figure out their skills and interests, says Heidi S. Shierholz, a labor-market economist. That’s partly why unemployment among young workers is consistently higher than for the work force in general, she says in a recent paper for the Economic Policy Institute. Since 1989, during good times and bad, the unemployment rate for workers under 25, a pool that includes both high-school and college graduates, has been more than double the overall rate, she found.

找到那条道路通常要花费一些时间因为很多应届生居住在新的城市并且需要时间去评估自己的技能和兴趣。劳动力市场的经济学家Heidi S. Shierholz这样说道。这就是年轻工作者有如此持续较高失业率的部分原因，她在最近的经济政策机构报告中说道。她发现自从1989年以来，无论是经济形势好坏与否，25岁以下的失业率，包括高校和大学毕业生，比整体的失业率高两倍以上。

Higher education isn’t where the problem is, she says. "There’s nothing universities can do about the broader weakness in the labor market," Ms. Shierholz said in an interview."We have low aggregate demand for goods and services, and businesses are reluctant to hire. That’s what’s going on. Full stop."

更高的教育并不是问题所在，她说。“关于在劳动力市场更大的弱点，大学已经无济于事，”Ms. Shierholz在一次采访中说道。“我们建立对商品和服务的低要求，商人们不愿意雇佣。这就是关键所在。全部停止了”

She favors policy remedies,like increasing deficit spending on infrastructure needs, to stimulate economic demand. "There are lots of things to do," she says, "but none involve the behavior of universities."

她更喜欢政策扶持，就像持续的花费在基础设施财政赤字来刺激经济需求。“这里有很多沃恩可以做的，”她说，“但是没有涉及到学校的行为。”

The rise in total debt incurred by students has also increased pressure on colleges to demonstrate the bottom-line payoff of the degrees they offer. Student-loan debt from private and public sources topped $1-trillion in 2011.

学生债务的增长同样增加了大学的压力去表示他们可以提供的薪资的最低标准。学生借贷债务从私人到公众来源在2011年占据到1万亿美元。

That is an eye-popping number,but it reflects, in large part, the growing number of people attending college.

这是一个令人瞠目结舌的数字，但它在很大程度上反应了加入大学校园不断增长的人数。

Worries about individuals saddled with debt may be hyped, Beth Akers and Matthew M. Chingos argue in a June paper for the Brookings Institution. "The monthly payment burden faced by student-loan borrowers has stayed about the same or even lessened over the past two decades," they write. While those findings sparked controversy, they echo data released last year by the U.S.Department of Education in its report,"Degrees of Debt."

对于学生负债情况的担忧也许是炒作，Beth Akers和Matthew M. Chingos在为布鲁金斯学院的报告中说道。“在过去的二十年里，每个月面对支付压力的学生贷款的借方保持这相同的甚至更差的境地，”他们写道。尽管这些发现引起了争论，但是美国教育机构在他们的报告中发布了去年的数据来回应。

The conviction that American universities serve an explicitly economic purpose dates in many ways to the founding of our public higher-education system. The Morrill Act of 1862 assigned the nation’s public universities the duty of teaching people practical skills that help them do their jobs.

在许多方面对于美国大学能提供一个明确的经济目的坚信使得我们的公共高等教育体系的建立指日可待。1862年的莫里尔法令指定国家的公立大学教人们实践技能的责任,帮助他们完成他们的工作。

Structural shifts in the labor market over the past three decades have thrust higher education even more deeply into the core of the economy, says Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Centeron Education and the Workforce.

劳动力市场的结构性变化在过去的三十年里有推力高等教育更深入的核心经济,乔治敦大学教育和劳动力中心主任Anthony P. Carnevale说道。

After the recession of the early 1980s, high-paying manufacturing jobs started disappearing a mid advances in technology, tougher foreign competition, and declining union power. Those jobs were often replaced by ones in finance, health care, and computing, many of which require college.

1980年代初的经济衰退后,在高科技领域高薪的制造业工作岗位开始消失,只有更严格的外国竞争,和下降的工会力量。这些工作通常是被金融、医疗保健、和计算，其中许多要求大学的所取代。

"We needed more skill in the work force," Mr. Carnevale says. Post-secondary institutions were the most logical vehicle to develop that skill. "We turned to colleges and said, ‘You have a new mission.’ "

“我们需要拥有更多技能的劳动力,“Mr. Carnevale说道。高等教育机构是最合乎逻辑的工具来开发这样的技能。“我们转向学校,说,你有一个新的任务。

Many faculty members chafe at the primacy that this mission has assumed. "Higher education really is a work-force-development system," Mr. Carnevale says. "It doesn’t like to see itself that way."

许多教师对这个已经被假定的任务的首要地位觉得愤怒。“高等教育真的是一个劳动力开发系统,”Mr. Carnevale说。“这并不像看到本身。”

Another turning point came about a decade ago, David H. Autor, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,writes in Science.An "explosive rise" in the wage differential between high-school and college graduates took place from the 1980s through the early 2000s, followed by a plateau in 2005. Growth in college completion, Mr. Autor argues, led to this leveling off, reflecting laws of supply and demand.

另一个转折点出现在10年前，麻省理工大学经济学教授David H. Autor在《Science》上写道。从1980年代到2000年代初在高中和大学毕业生之间的工资差异发生了“爆炸性增长”,紧随其后在2005年达到一个稳定高峰值。Mr.Autor认为大学期间的增长导致这一停止并反映供求规律。

Between 2004 and 2012, the supply of new college graduates rose more than in previous decades. Demand, assignaled by wages, stagnated. "As this influx of supply took hold," he writes, "the college wage premium halted its enduring rise."

在2004到2012期间，应届生的数量比以往几十年增加了不少。需求,以工资为暗示,则停滞不前。“抓住这大量供应,”他写道,“大学毕业生的工资停止了持久的涨幅。”

The wage premium may be shifting. Debt incurred for graduate programs is growing rapidly. Graduate school,particularly for master’s degrees, is increasingly seen as necessary to gain purchase on the middle class.

工资溢价可能会发生变化。对研究生项目债务增长迅速。研究生院,尤其是硕士学位,越来越被视为必要的获得对中产阶级购买。

"We’ve made graduate school part of our find-a-job strategy," says Ben Miller, a senior policy analyst who studies student-loan debt for the New America Foundation, "and that’s a problem."

“我们已经取得了研究生院我们找到工作的战略的一部分,”新美国基金会的学生贷款债务的高级政策分析师Ben Miller研究,“这是一个问题。”

We have also made a college education, particularly a bachelor’s degree, part of our create-a-job-strategy,says Mark S. Schneider, a vice president of the American Institutes for Research. "Governors and state legislators look at this as their biggest human-capital investment," he says. Higher education also remains one of the biggest investments made by individuals and families because of the steady drum beat of studies touting a degree’s payoff. "We’ve been trained and taught," he says, that "a bachelor’s degree is the best investment you’re ever going to make."

我们也取得了大学教育,特别是学士学位,是我们创造工作战略的一部分,美国研究协会副主席MarkS. Schneider说。“州长和州立法委员把这个视为是他们最大的人力资本投资,”他说。高等教育仍由个人和家庭的最大投资之一,因为稳步进行的研究兜售某种程度的回报。“我们一直在训练和教导,”他说，“学士学位就是你所做的投资里面最棒的一项。”

Mr. Schneider’s analyses of first-year earnings of graduates, by major, in six states preceded the Obama administration’s proposals to rate colleges. People must choose to pay tuition to specific institutions and enroll in certain programs, and they need the kind of information he publishes, he says, because it will help them make those investments wisely.

Mr. Schneider根据专业所做的毕业生第一年盈利分析在六个州和奥巴马政府的调查大学的提案之前。人们必须选择交学费到特定的机构和参加某些程序,和他们需要的信息发布,他说,因为这将帮助他们做出明智的投资。

Otherwise, the value of a degree is described in big aggregate numbers that can mask important distinctions in the results that individual colleges produce and how well they prepare their students. When the larger economy struggles, those differences are felt acutely. In such times, the lofty economic expectations attached to higher education may prove hard to shake.

否则,学位的价值是由那些能掩盖个别学校生产的重要特征的极端数字来描述,并且为他们的学生准备。当较大的经济斗争,这些差异是感觉敏锐。在这样的时代,高等教育的崇高的经济预期可能难以动摇。

"Colleges," Mr.Schneider says, "may be really sorry they went down this road."

“大学，”Mr.Schneider说，“也许真的很抱歉选择了这条路。”

文中生词：

Cudgel:n.棍棒vt.用棍棒打

1)A cudgel is a thick, short stick that is used as a weapon.

2)If you take up the cudgels for someone or something, you speak or fight in support of them.

sputter :n.喷溅声；劈啪声；急语；咕哝v.唾沫飞溅；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出

1)If something such as an engine or a flame sputters, it works or burns in an uneven way and makes a series of soft popping sounds.

2)If a process, action, or state of affairs sputters, it progresses slowly and unevenly or starts to end.

3)If you sputter, you speak with difficulty and make short sounds, especially because you are angry, shocked, or excited.

Chafe:vt.& vi.擦热（尤指皮肤）；擦痛；发怒；惹怒n.擦伤

1)If your skin chafes or is chafed by something, it becomes sore as a result of something rubbing against it.

2)If you chafe at something such as a restriction, you feel annoyed about it.

本文转自：http://chronicle.com/article/Do-Americans-Expect-Too-Much/148537/

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