2016年12月六级第2套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

What a waste of money! In return for an average of £44,000 of debt, students get an average of only 14 hours of lecture and tutorial time a week in Britain. Annual fees have risen from £1,000 to £9,000 in the last decade, but contact time at university has barely risen at all. And graduating doesn't even provide any guarantee of a decent job; six in ten graduates today are in non-graduate jobs.

多么浪费钱！在英国，学生平均负债4.4万英镑，换来的却是每周平均仅14小时的讲座和辅导时间。过去十年间，学费从1000英镑涨至9000英镑，但大学的接触时间几乎没有增加。而且，毕业甚至不能保证找到体面的工作；如今十分之六的毕业生从事的是不需要大学学历的工作。

No wonder it has become fashionable to denounce many universities as little more than elaborate con-tricks (耳扇术). There's a lot for students to complain about; the repayment threshold for paying back loans will be frozen for five years, meaning that lower-paid graduates have to start repaying their loans ; and maintenance grants have been replaced by loans, meaning that students from poorer backgrounds face higher debt than those with wealthier parents.

难怪将许多大学贬低为不过是精心设计的骗局（耳扇术）已成为一种流行观点。学生有很多可抱怨之处：贷款的还款门槛将被冻结五年，这意味着收入较低的毕业生必须开始偿还贷款；生活补助金已被贷款取代，这意味着家境较差的学生将比父母更富裕的学生面临更高的债务。

Yet it still pays to go to university. If going to university doesn't work out, students pay very little — if any — of their tuition fees back; you only start repaying when you are earning £21,000 a year. Almost half of graduates — those who go on to earn less — will have a portion of their debt written off. It's not just the lectures and tutorials that are important. Education is the sum of what students teach each other in between lectures and seminars. Students do not merely benefit while at university; studies show they go on to be healthier and happier than non-graduates, and also far more likely to vote.

然而，上大学仍然值得。如果大学经历不顺利，学生只需偿还很少甚至无需偿还学费；只有在年收入达到2.1万英镑时才开始还款。近一半的毕业生——那些后续收入较低的人——将有一部分债务被免除。重要的不仅仅是讲座和辅导课。教育是学生在讲座和研讨会之间相互教导的总和。学生不仅在大学期间受益；研究表明，他们比非毕业生更健康、更快乐，而且更有可能参与投票。

Whatever your talents, it is extraordinarily difficult to get a leading job in most fields without having been to university. Recruiters circle elite universities like vultures (兀鹰). Many top firms will not even look at applications from those who lack a 2.1, i.e., an upper-second class degree, from an elite university. Students at university also meet those likely to be in leading jobs in the future, forming contacts for life. This might not be right, but school-leavers who fail to acknowledge as much risk making the wrong decision about going to university.

无论你有何才能，没有上过大学，在大多数领域都极难获得顶尖工作。招聘人员像秃鹫一样在精英大学周围盘旋。许多顶级公司甚至不会考虑没有来自精英大学2:1学位（即二等一级学位）的申请。大学生也会遇到那些未来可能身居要职的人，从而建立终身的人脉关系。这或许并不合理，但未能认识到这一点的离校生，可能在上大学的决定上犯错。

Perhaps the reason why so many universities offer their students so little is they know studying at a top university remains a brilliant investment even if you don't learn anything. Studying at university will only become less attractive if employers shift their focus away from where someone went to university — and there is no sign of that happening anytime soon. School-leavers may moan, but they have little choice but to embrace university and the student debt that comes with it.

或许，如此多的大学向学生提供的东西如此之少，原因在于他们知道，在顶尖大学学习即使学不到任何东西，仍然是一项明智的投资。只有当雇主将关注点从某人上过哪所大学转移开时，上大学才会变得不那么有吸引力——而短期内看不到任何这种迹象。离校生可能会抱怨，但他们别无选择，只能接受大学以及随之而来的学生债务。