教育部上周发布通知，宣布秋季学期将以严格措施监督全国大中小学分批复课，“应开尽开”。相比之下英语国家的情况要严峻得多，疫情令海外高校倚赖的许多中国学生今年难以成行，有预计认为“能全部或大部分恢复当面授课”的美国大学可能不到四分之一。复课成了特朗普政府与大学的博弈，也暴露出一个存在已久的经济问题：美英澳等富裕国家近几十年来对高等教育的投资并没有阻止生产率增长放缓，上大学的好处也并非对所有人适用。多年来，有赖于政府补贴和需求激增，大学一直抵触变化——有些变化原本于学生和社会都有益。疫情加速危机，更多高校应主动应变。上方扫码/文末“阅读原文”可直接订阅商论中英对照阅读。
《经济学人·商论》八月刊免费文章
《缺勤的学生》（The absent student）
【首文】大学
Universities
The absent student
缺勤的学生
Covid-19 will be painful for universities, but it will also bring long-needed change
新冠肺炎会让大学头痛不已，但也会带来拖延已久的变革
IN THE NORMAL run of things, late summer sees airports in the emerging world fill with nervous 18-year-olds, jetting off to begin a new life in the rich world’s universities. The annual trek of more than 5m students is a triumph of globalisation. Students see the world; universities get a fresh batch of high-paying customers. Yet with flights grounded and borders closed, this migration is about to become the pandemic’s latest victim.
正常情况下，每年到了夏末，新兴国家的机场里就挤满了神情紧张的18岁年轻人，他们即将飞往富裕国家的大学校园，开始新生活。这场每年有500多万名学生参与的远行是全球化的一项重大成就。学生们见了世面；大学收获了新一批支付高额学费的客户。但是，如今航班停飞，边境关闭，这场大迁移即将成为新冠疫情最新的受害者。
For students, covid-19 is making life difficult. Many must choose between inconveniently timed seminars streamed into their parents’ living rooms and inconveniently deferring their studies until life is more normal. For universities, it is disastrous. They will not only lose huge chunks of revenue from foreign students but, because campus life spreads infection, they will have to transform the way they operate.
新冠肺炎让学生们日子不好过。许多人必须做出选择：要么克服时差带来的不便，在父母家的客厅里参加线上课程；要么承受学业推迟带来的麻烦，直到生活变得相对正常。对大学来说，新冠肺炎是一场灾难。它们不仅会失去来自留学生的巨额收入，而且因为校园生活容易扩散传染病，它们还将不得不改变自己的运行方式。

Yet the disaster may have an upside. For many years government subsidies and booming demand have allowed universities to resist changes that could benefit both students and society. They may not be able to do so for much longer.
不过，这场灾难可能也有其积极的一面。多年来，有赖于政府补贴和需求激增，大学一直抵触变化，而有些变化原本可能于学生和社会都有益。它们可能没法固执太久了。

Higher education has been thriving. Since 1995, as the notion spread from the rich world to the emerging one that a degree from a good institution was essential, the number of young people enrolling in higher education rose from 16% of the relevant age group to 38%. The results have been visible on swanky campuses throughout the Anglosphere, whose better universities have been the principal beneficiaries of the emerging world’s aspirations.
高等教育一直在蓬勃发展。自1995年以来，随着“好学校的文凭非常重要”这一观念从富裕国家传到新兴国家，上大学的年轻人占适龄人口的比例从16%上升到了38%。其结果很容易从英语国家众多时髦豪华的校园里看出来，而这些国家的名牌大学也成了新兴国家民众对教育的抱负的主要受益者。
Yet troubles are piling up. China has been a source of high-paying foreign students for Western universities, but relations between the West and China are souring. Students with ties to the army are to be banned from America.
但问题不断累积。中国一直是给西方大学带去高昂学费的留学生来源国，但如今中西方关系正在恶化。美国将禁止与军方有关联的学生入境。

Governments have been turning against universities, too. In an age when politics divides along educational lines, universities struggle to persuade some politicians of their merit. President Donald Trump attacks them for “Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education”. Some 59% of Republican voters have a negative view of colleges; just 18% of Democrats do. In Britain universities’ noisy opposition to Brexit has not helped. Given that the state pays for between a quarter and a half of tertiary education in America, Australia and Britain, through student loans and grants, the government’s enthusiasm matters.
政府也走到了大学的对立面。在当今这样一个政见因教育背景不同而分化的时代，大学很难让一些政客相信它们的价值所在。特朗普抨击大学“灌输激进的左翼思想，而不是从事教育”。大约59%的共和党选民对大学持负面态度，而在民主党选民中这一比例只有18%。在英国，大学吵吵嚷嚷反对脱欧，也不利于它们自身的处境。在美国、澳大利亚和英国，政府通过学生贷款和助学金支付了25%到50%的高等教育费用，因此政府重视与否至关重要。

Scepticism among politicians is not born only of spite. Governments invest in higher education to boost productivity by increasing human capital. But even as universities have boomed, productivity growth in the rich-country economies has fallen. Many politicians suspect that universities are not teaching the right subjects, and are producing more graduates than labour markets need. Small wonder that the state is beginning to pull back. In America government spending on universities has been flat in recent years; in Australia, even as the price of humanities degrees doubles, so it will fall for subjects the government deems good for growth.
政客们的疑虑不仅仅源于怨憎。政府投资高等教育，是要通过提升人力资本来提高生产率。但在富裕国家，一面是大学的蓬勃发展，一面却是生产率增长放缓。许多政客怀疑大学没有在传授正确的内容，培养出的毕业生数量又超出了劳动力市场的需求。难怪政府开始打退堂鼓。美国政府对大学的投入近年一直没有增长；在澳大利亚，人文学科的学费翻了一番，而那些政府认为有助于提高生产率的学科的学费还是会下降。

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