WITH its leafy avenues and Gothic buildings, the University of Chicago seems a sober, solid sort of place. John D. Rockefeller, whose money built it, said it was the “best investment I ever made”. Yet Chicago and other not-for-profit American universities have been piling on the debt as if they were high-tech start-ups.
拥有着枝繁叶茂的林荫大道和哥特风格的建筑，芝加哥大学看上去是那么的严肃而结实可靠。投资建设芝加哥大学的约翰·D·洛克菲勒盛赞它是“自己做过的最好的投资”。然而芝加哥以及美国其他非营利性大学却如高科技初创企业般债台高筑。
Long-term debt at not-for-profit universities in America has been growing at 12% a year, estimate Bain & Company, a consultancy, and Sterling Partners, a private-equity firm (see chart 1). A new report looked at the balance-sheets and cashflow statements of 1, 692 universities and colleges between 2006 and 2010, and found that one-third were significantly weaker than they had been several years previously.
据贝恩咨询公司以及私募股权公司——英镑伙伴估计，美国非营利性大学的长期债务每年增长12%（见表一）。一项新报道显示，对比了1692所大学2006年和2010年的资产负债表和现金流报表后，发现三分之一的学校的财务情况显著弱于先前几年。
A crisis in higher education has been brewing for years. Universities have been spending like students in a bar who think a Rockefeller will pick up the tab. In the past two years the University of Chicago has built a spiffy new library (where the books are cleverly retrieved by robots), a new arts centre and a ten-storey hospital building. It has also opened a new campus in Beijing.
高等教育领域的这场危机已经酝酿了好几年。大学的花销如此之大，就像学生们在酒吧消费却幻想洛克菲勒会来买单一样。在过去的两年内，芝加哥大学建了一幢漂亮的新图书馆（馆中的藏书由机器人智能检索），一个新的艺术中心以及一幢十层楼高的医院。同时它还在北京建了一个新校区。
And it is not alone. Universities hope that vast investments will help them attract the best staff and students, draw in research grants and donations, and ultimately boost their ranking in league tables, drawing in yet more talent and money. They have also increased the proportion of outlays gobbled up by administrators (see chart 2).
事不止于此。各个大学都希望巨额投资将帮助它们吸引最优秀的员工和学员，吸入研究经费和捐款，并最终提高它们在排行榜上的排名，吸引来更多的人才和资金。大学还提高了吸金管理层的支出比例（见表二）。
To pay for all this, universities have been enrolling more students and jacking up their fees. The average cost of college per student has risen by three times the rate of inflation since 1983. The cost of tuition alone has soared from 23% of median annual earnings in 2001 to 38% in 2010. Such increases plainly cannot continue.
为了支付所有的这些费用，各大学招收了更多的学生并提高了他们的学费。从1983年以来，平均每个大学生的费用膨胀了三倍。光学费收入一项占年度收益的比例就从2001年的23%飙升至2010年的38%。这种上涨真的不能再继续了。
Student debt has reportedly reached a record $1 trillion. Before the financial crisis, some private lenders stoked the frenzy by securitising risky student loans—rather like subprime mortgages. This practice has been stopped but at its peak in 2008, private lenders disbursed $20 billion. Last year they shelled out only $6 billion.
据报道，学生债务已创历史新高达到1万亿美元。在经济危机前，一些私人贷款方疯狂地为有风险的助学贷款提供担保——有点像次级抵押贷款。这种行为在2008年被停止但已达到顶峰，此时私人贷款方已支付了200亿美元。而去年他们只交付了60亿美元。
Federal support for higher education remains at historically high levels, but states have cut back. To make matters worse, endowments (and their returns) have shrunk, money from philanthropy has dried up and those universities that provide need-based aid have suddenly found their students are needier.
联邦政府对高等教育的投资依旧处于历史高位，但各州政府已经削减了投资。让情况更糟糕的是，捐赠基金（以及基金的收益）收缩了，慈善界投资的钱已经枯竭，这些提供助学金的大学突然发现它们的学生们很贫困。
All this suggests that colleges have good cause to worry about their debts. Unlike grades, they cannot be inflated away. Even Harvard, Yale, Cornell and Georgetown have been on an unsustainable path in recent years, says Bain, though all have big endowments to cushion themselves.
所有这些都暗示着高等学府们有足有理由去担心它们的债务。债务不像分数，不会膨胀冲销。贝恩公司表示，甚至连哈佛、耶鲁、康奈尔和乔治城大学最近几年的发展方向都是不可持续的，虽然这些大学都有大量基金来缓冲危机保护自己。
Glenn Reynolds, the author of “The Higher Education Bubble”, predicts that the bubble will burst “messily”. People have long believed that “whatever the cost, a college education is a necessary ticket to future prosperity.” Easy credit has allowed them to pay ever more, and colleges have raised fees to absorb the extra cash. However, this cannot go on forever, says Mr Reynolds, especially when people start asking whether a degree in religious and women’s studies is worth the $100, 000 debt incurred to pay for it.
《高等教育的泡沫》作者雷诺兹预言，高等教育的泡沫将会“混乱”破灭爆发。长久以来人们都相信“不管花费多少钱，大学教育都是通向未来成功的必要门票”。放松的信贷政策让学生们能够支付更多，而大学提高了费用来吸纳更多地额外资金。可是，雷诺兹表示，学校并不能永远继续下去，特别是当人们开始疑惑一个宗教和女性研究的学位是否值得为之招致10万美金的债务。
Jeff Denneen, a Bain consultant, puts it more cautiously. Higher education has not delivered extra value to match the extra costs, he says. Indeed, the average student is studying for fewer hours and learning less than in the past. Grade inflation only partially masks these trends. Mr Denneen agrees that the bubble will burst, though he does not say “messily”.
贝恩公司的顾问杰夫·登宁所说的更为谨慎。他表示，高等教育并没有带来匹配额外花费的额外价值。事实上，一般的学生都比过去学习时间短，学的东西也少。分数贬值只是部分地掩饰了这种趋势。登宁同意泡沫即将破灭的说法，虽然他没有用“混乱”这个词。
Some universities are addressing their financial problems. Cornell began in 2009: Kent Fuchs, the provost, offered to cut the costs of administration by $70m, if the faculty would concentrate on excelling at a limited number of important things, rather than trying to do everything. Mr Fuchs says that a university can become too broad; a financial squeeze is an opportunity to become more focused.
一些大学正忙于处理它们的经济困境。康奈尔大学从2009年就开始了行动：校长肯特·福克斯提出如果全体教员能专心于擅长的数量有限的重要事情，而不是不量力而行试图包揽一切，财政支出就可以削减7000万美元。福克斯校长说一个大学可能会变得太大；财政困难是使大学变得更加集中。
Since 2010, many endowments have recovered their value, and data from 823 institutions show a return of 19% for 2011. The University of Chicago is one of many whose finances have improved since 2010. Brand-name institutions are unlikely to go bust, says Mr Denneen, but they may have to curb needs-blind admission, or hire fewer star professors.
从2010年起，许多捐赠基金重新恢复了价值，而从823个机构得到的数据显示，2011年这一基金收益达到19%。许多大学自2010年来财政状况有了好转，芝加哥大学也是其中之一。登宁表示，名牌大学不太可能会破产，但是它们必须抑制扩招入学，或者雇佣更少的明星教授。
Lesser-known colleges, which lack big endowments, will have to cut deeper. Timidly trimming a bit from every department each year, in the hope that good times return, will not work. Departments and courses must be shed and whole campuses merged or shuttered.
而那些鲜为人知又缺少巨额赠款的大学就要削减得更多。每年从每个部门削减少量的开支，期盼着好时光的返回，这是不会起作用的。必须关闭院系和课程，对整个学校进行合并或关闭。
Public universities, with more centralised leadership, find it easier to consolidate. New Jersey is merging its medical college into Rutgers University, and there are four sets of mergers in Georgia alone. One will combine Augusta State and Georgia Health Sciences universities, and will strip administrative costs and overheads.
拥有较集中领导阶层的公立大学相对比较容易进行合并。新泽西州正在将它的医学院并入罗格斯大学，而光在佐治亚州就有四项合并在进行。奥古斯塔州立大学和格鲁吉亚健康科学大学即将合并，行政成本和管理开支都将被削减。
For-profit universities have proved to be the exception to the rule: most are in good financial health. However, they face pressure from lawmakers who think they fail to deliver value for the $32 billion in subsidies they receive. A new report from Senator Tom Harkin decries the for-profit sector’s aggressive recruiting, poor academic results and excessive fees.
营利性大学已被证明是例外：大多数营利性大学都有着良好而健康的财务状况。然而他们却面临着来自立法者的压力，立法者认为这些营利性大学并没有实现它们所接受的320亿美元补助的价值。参议员汤姆·哈金在一项新报告中谴责了营利性大学的疯狂扩招、可怜的学术成果和过多的费用。
College-boosters have several retorts to all this doom-mongering. Surely, they say, as technology advances, the demand for education will continue to grow? Cynics add that Bain’s recommendations should be taken warily, since it stands to win fat consulting contracts if lots of American universities decide to restructure.
大学支持者对这些消极言论进行了反驳。他们肯定地反驳道，当技术进步时，难道教育不用跟着进步吗？一些愤世嫉俗者补充道，应该对贝恩咨询公司的建议采取谨慎态度，因为如果许多美国大学决定重组的话，贝恩公司一定会赢得利润肥厚的咨询合同。
Still, the doomsayers may be onto something. Four-year residential colleges cannot keep on forever raising their fees faster than the public’s capacity to pay them, especially when online degrees are so much cheaper. Universities that fail to prepare for the hurricane ahead are likely to be flattened by it.
然而，这些灾难预言者可能真的说到了一些点上。四年制寄宿制大学不能永远提高它们的费用，并且这种提高的速度超过了公众的支付能力，特别是当在线学位是如此的便宜的时候。那些未能提前预防财政灾难的大学将被它夷为平地。
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