2018年06月六级第2套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

There're currently 21.5 million students in America, and many will be funding their college on borrowed money. Given that there's now over $1.3 trillion in student loans on the books, it's pretty clear that many students are far from sensible. The average student's debt upon graduation now approaches $40, 000, and as college becomes ever more expensive, calls to make it "free" are multiplying. Even Hillary Clinton says that when it comes to college, "Costs won't be a barrier. "

目前美国有2150万学生，许多人将通过借款来资助大学教育。鉴于目前学生贷款总额超过1.3万亿美元，很明显许多学生远非明智。学生毕业时的平均债务接近4万美元，随着大学费用越来越高，呼吁使其“免费”的声音不断增多。甚至希拉里·克林顿也说，当涉及到大学时，“费用不会成为障碍。”

But the only way college could be free is if the faculty and staff donated their time, the buildings required no maintenance, and campuses required no utilities. As long as it's impossible to produce something from nothing, costs are absolutely a barrier.

但大学免费的唯一方式是教职员工捐赠时间、建筑无需维护、校园无需设施。只要无法无中生有，费用绝对是一个障碍。

The actual question we debate is who should pay for people to go to college. If taxpayers are to bear the cost of forgiving student loans, shouldn't they have a say in how their money is used?

我们实际辩论的问题是谁应该为人们上大学买单。如果纳税人要承担免除学生贷款的费用，他们难道不应该对如何使用他们的钱有发言权吗？

At least taxpayers should be able to decide what students will study on the public dime. If we're going to force taxpayers to foot the bill for college degrees, students should only study those subjects that're of greatest benefit to taxpayers. After all, students making their own choices in this respect is what caused the problem in the first place. We simply don't need more poetry, gender studies, or sociology majors. How do we know which subjects benefit society? Easy.

至少纳税人应该能够决定学生用公共资金学什么。如果我们要强迫纳税人支付大学学位的费用，学生应该只学习那些对纳税人最有益的科目。毕竟，学生在这方面的自主选择正是导致问题的根本原因。我们根本不需要更多的诗歌、性别研究或社会学专业。我们如何知道哪些科目对社会有益？很简单。

Average starting salaries give a clear indication of what type of training society needs its new workers to have. Certainly, there're benefits to a college major beyond the job a student can perform. But if we're talking about the benefits to society, the only thing that matters is what the major enables the student to produce for society. And the value of what the student can produce is reflected in the wage employers are willing to pay the student to produce it.

平均起薪清楚地表明社会需要新员工接受何种培训。当然，大学专业的好处不仅仅限于学生能从事的工作。但如果我们谈论对社会的好处，唯一重要的是专业使学生能为社会生产什么。而学生能生产的东西的价值体现在雇主愿意支付给学生的工资上。

A low wage for elementary school teachers, however, doesn't mean elementary education isn't important. It simply means there're too many elementary school teachers already.

然而，小学教师工资低并不意味着小学教育不重要。这仅仅意味着已经有太多小学教师了。

Meanwhile, there're few who're willing and able to perform jobs requiring a petroleum engineering major, so the value of one more of those people is very high.

与此同时，很少有人愿意并能够从事需要石油工程专业的工作，因此再增加一个这样的人价值非常高。

So we can have taxpayers pick up students' tuition in exchange for dictating what those students will study. Or we can allow students both to choose their majors and pay for their education themselves. But in the end, one of two things is true:

所以，我们可以让纳税人支付学生的学费，以换取决定这些学生学什么。或者我们可以允许学生既选择专业又自己支付教育费用。但最终，两种情况中有一种是真实的：

Either a college major is worth its cost or it isn't. If yes, taxpayer financing isn't needed If not taxpayer financing isn't desirable. Either way, taxpayers have no business paying for students' college education.

要么一个大学专业值得其成本，要么不值得。如果是前者，纳税人资助不需要；如果是后者，纳税人资助不可取。无论如何，纳税人都没有理由支付学生的大学教育。