2015考研英语阅读大学毕业生的担忧

　　Angst for the educated

　　大学毕业生的担忧

　　MILLIONS of school-leavers in the rich world are about to bid a tearful goodbye to their parentsand start a new life at university. Some are inspired by a pure love of learning. But most alsobelieve that spending three or four years at universityand accumulating huge debts in theprocesswill boost their chances of landing a well-paid and secure job.

　　发达国家数百万的高中毕业生将要含泪告别他们的父母，开始新的大学生活。有些人被纯粹热爱学习鼓舞着。但是大部分人同样相信在大学待三、四年，虽然在这个过程中累积了大量的债务，但他们获得高薪稳定工作的几率将会大大增加。

　　Their elders have always told them that education is the best way to equip themselves to thrivein a globalised world. Blue-collar workers will see their jobs offshored and automated, thefamiliar argument goes. School dropouts will have to cope with a life of cash-strappedinsecurity. But the graduate elite will have the world at its feet. There is some evidence tosupport this view. A recent study from Georgetown Universitys Centre on Education and theWorkforce argues that obtaining a post-secondary credential is almost always worth it.Educational qualifications are tightly correlated with earnings: an American with a professionaldegree can expect to pocket $3.6m over a lifetime; one with merely a high-school diploma canexpect only $1.3m. The gap between more- and less-educated earners may be widening. Astudy in 2002 found that someone with a bachelors degree could expect to earn 75% moreover a lifetime than someone with only a high-school diploma. Today the premium is evenhigher.

　　他们的长辈们经常告诫他们，教育是武装自己投身于全球化世界的最好的方式。蓝领工人看着他们的工作岗位迁往海外且被自动化代替，相似的言论此起彼伏。中途辍学的学生将要面对资金短缺的无保障生活，但是优秀毕业生则事业有成。有证据来证明该观点，乔治城大学教育和劳动力中心最近的一项调查认为，获取高中以上的证书总是值得的。教育上的资格证书与收入紧密相关：一位拥有专业学位的美国人终其一生可以赚取360万美元，而仅仅只有高中文凭的人其一生可以赚130万美元。教育程度高与教育程度低之间的差距可能已经扩大。 2002年的一项调查发现，本科学历的人一生将比高中学历的人多赚75%，现在，这个数据甚至更高。

　　But is the past a reliable guide to the future? Or are we at the beginning of a new phase in therelationship between jobs and education? There are good reasons for thinking that old patternsare about to changeand that the current recession-driven downturn in the demand forWestern graduates will morph into something structural. The gale of creative destruction thathas shaken so many blue-collar workers over the past few decades is beginning to shake thecognitive elite as well.

　　但是，过去是未来的可靠向导么?或者我们处于工作和教育之间关系重新解读的起点么?旧模式将要改变的想法是有原因的目前因经济衰退而导致对西方毕业生的需求减少，这将会转变成结构性的。在过去几十年里曾经抢走很多蓝领工人饭碗的一系列的创新，现在也开始对认知的精英构成威胁了。

　　The supply of university graduates is increasingrapidly. The Chronicle of Higher Education calculatesthat between 1990 and 2007 the number ofstudents going to university increased by 22% inNorth America, 74% in Europe, 144% in LatinAmerica and 203% in Asia. In 2007 150m peopleattended university around the world, including 70min Asia. Emerging economiesespecially Chinaarepouring resources into building universities that cancompete with the elite of America and Europe. Theyare also producing professional-services firms suchas Tata Consulting Services and Infosys that take fresh graduates and turn them into world-class computer programmers and consultants. The best and the brightest of the rich worldmust increasingly compete with the best and the brightest from poorer countries who arewilling to work harder for less money.

　　大学毕业生正急剧增长。《高等教育编年史》预测，在1990年到2007年之间，进入大学的学生人数在北美增长了22%，欧洲增长了74%，拉美增长了144%，以及亚洲增长了203%。2007年，全世界有1.5亿人进入大学，其中包括亚洲的七千万人。新兴经济体，尤其是中国，将资源投入到大学建设，以至于能于欧美精英相竞争。这些国家还成立专业服务公司，诸如塔塔咨询和印孚瑟斯，将刚毕业的大学生打造成世界级电脑程序员和顾问。发达国家最优秀最聪明的毕业生必须逐渐与不发达国家的最优秀最聪明的毕业生相竞争，因为不发达国家的毕业生愿意从事更加辛苦的工作且接受较少的工资。

　　At the same time, the demand for educated labour is being reconfigured by technology, in muchthe same way that the demand for agricultural labour was reconfigured in the 19th century andthat for factory labour in the 20th. Computers can not only perform repetitive mental tasksmuch faster than human beings. They can also empower amateurs to do what professionalsonce did: why hire a flesh-and-blood accountant to complete your tax return when Turbotax will do the job at a fraction of the cost? And the variety of jobs thatcomputers can do is multiplying as programmers teach them to deal with tone and linguisticambiguity.

　　同时，对受教育的劳动力的需求因技术而被重新配置，这与19世纪农业劳动力需求被重新配置以及20世纪工厂劳动力的需求被重新配置大同小异。电脑不仅在重复记忆工作上比人类更加快，而且电脑能使业余者从事原本只有专家才能做的事情：如果 Turbotax能以很低的成本完成纳税申报单的话，为什么还要雇用一个会计来完成这项工作呢?当程序员能够使电脑学会解决语调和语言歧义的问题后，电脑能做的工作种类将倍增。

　　Several economists, including Paul Krugman, have begun to argue that post-industrial societieswill be characterised not by a relentless rise in demand for the educated but by a greathollowing out, as mid-level jobs are destroyed by smart machines and high-level job growthslows. David Autor, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , points out that themain effect of automation in the computer era is not that it destroys blue-collar jobs but that itdestroys any job that can be reduced to a routine. Alan Blinder, of Princeton University, arguesthat the jobs graduates have traditionally performed are if anything more offshorable thanlow-wage ones. A plumber or lorry-drivers job cannot be outsourced to India. A computerprogrammers can.

　　包括保罗?克鲁格曼在内的一些经济学家认为，后工业化社会特征将不是对知识分子的需求无止尽增长，而是当中等水平的工作由智能机器完成以及高水平工作增长缓慢时，出现的巨大产业空洞化。麻省理工大学的戴维?奥托尔指出，电脑时代自动化的主要影响不是因为夺走了蓝领工人的岗位，而是在于摧毁了能被简化成流水线所有工作岗位。普林斯顿大学的艾伦?布林德认为毕业生从事的传统工作，要比低工资工作更加容易外包。一个水管工或者卡车司机的工作将不会外包给印度人，但是计算机程序员的工作岗位可以外包出去。