“No one should go broke because they chose to go to college,” Barack Obama said in January in his state-of-the-union speech. But American college students worry they might, thanks to recent fee increases at technical colleges and universities. On March 4th students and disgruntled faculty staged protests at around 100 campuses in over 30 states, calling on state legislators and university administrators to put a halt to recent tuition hikes and funding cuts. In Oakland, California, student protesters marched onto a big highway and stopped the traffic. Elsewhere students carried coffins to symbolise the death of affordable education.

巴拉克·奥巴马在一月的国情咨文演说中说：“每个人都不应该因为他们选择上大学而破产。”但最近由于技术学院和大学学费的增加，美国大学生担心他们可能会破产。3月4日，学生和不满的教职工在30多个州近100多学校里发起抗议，号召州立法者和大学的管理人员停止最近的学费暴涨和资助削减。在加利福尼亚州的奥克兰，抗议的学生进入了一条大的高速公路，阻碍了那里的交通。在其它地方，学生搬了棺材来表明支付得起的教育已经死亡。

According to the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, a think-tank, at least 39 states have decreased their funding for public colleges and universities or increased their tuition charges. In California some public universities have increased fees by more than 30%. At the same time they are cutting back on their offerings. Many have tried to save money by laying off staff, closing academic departments and reducing the number of classes offered. Some are admitting more out-of-state students, who pay higher fees.

据智库预算和优先政策中心称，至少39个州已经削减了它们对公立学院和大学的资助或增加了它们的学费。在加利福尼亚州，有些公立大学把它们的学费增加了30%多。同时，它们正减少其服务。很多学校通过裁员、关闭学术研究部门和减少课程的提供量来尽力节省资金。一些学校正招收更多州外的学生，他们支付更高的学费。

Several institutions have also started to cut the number of students they enroll in order to save money. California State University (CSU), a public university system that has 23 campuses in California, will reduce enrolment by 20,000 students next academic year, because it has lost $564m, or around 20%, of its state funding.It is not just public universities that are finding themselves in a tricky spot. Some of America’s richest private universities are increasing their charges, because their endowments have suffered steep losses. Yale recently announced that its fees will go up next year by nearly 5%, to $49,800, although it promised to spend around 10% more on financial aid for needy students.

几家机构也已开始减少招收学生的数量从而节省资金。公立大学系统加州州立大学在加州拥有23个校区，将在下学年少招收2万学生，因为它已经损失了5.64亿美元或者约其州资助的20%。仅仅是公立大学发现自己身陷囹圄。一些美国最富有的私立大学也正在增加其学费，因为它们获得的捐助骤减。耶鲁大学最近宣布明年其学费将上升5%升至49800美元，尽管它承诺用于为贫困的学生提供经济资助的支出将增加10%左右。

These increases may signal a permanent shift in the cost of higher education, analysts say, which could dissuade poorer people from considering college. It is unlikely that fees will return to pre-recession levels once the economy recovers. “There is no law of gravity in higher education pricing,” reckons Kevin Carey of Education Sector, a think-tank. “What goes up never comes down.”

分析人士称，这些学费增加或许是高等教育费用彻底转变的一个信号，这可能会使更加贫穷的人不再考虑上大学。就算经济复苏后，学费也不太可能恢复到衰退前的水平。智库教育部的凯文·卡利表示：“高等教育的学费不遵守地心引力的规律，上涨后从来不会再回落。”

 

 

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