来源：《每日电讯报》
原文刊登日期：2023年7月9日
Whitehall mandarins are fearful of a revolt among middle-class parents, as their children face being squeezed out of top degree places by universities that are incentivised to admit more foreign students instead. This crisis is the latest product of a dysfunctional system, made worse by piecemeal reform and top-down social engineering.
英国政府官员害怕中产阶级家长的反抗，因为他们的孩子面临着被大学挤出顶尖学位的局面，而这些大学则被鼓励招收更多的外国学生。这场危机是一个功能失调的系统的最新产物，零碎的改革和自上而下的社会工程使其变得更糟。
The mess sweeping over higher education has been a long time coming. It springs in part from a failure, over many decades, to develop proper vocational pathways for Britain’s school-leavers. That was compounded by the naive New Labour commitment that half of young people should go to university, without considering the value or quality of the courses they would take. Today, too many degrees fail to lead to improved career prospects for young people – who then never pay off their student loans. But the universities face few, if any, negative consequences for this: they bank the income from fees, while the taxpayer will be left to pick up the bill over the years ahead.
席卷高等教育的混乱已经持续了很长一段时间。这在一定程度上源于几十年来未能为英国离校生发展合适的职业道路。新工党天真地承诺，一半的年轻人应该上大学，而不考虑他们所学课程的价值或质量，这进一步恶化了大学毕业生的就业情况。如今，有太多的学位无法改善年轻人的职业前景——他们永远不会还清学生贷款。但大学几乎没有因此而面临负面后果：它们将学费收入存入银行，而纳税人将在未来几年里为学费买单。
The system has also become corrupted by misguided attempts at social engineering, including the introduction in some cases of quasi-quotas that penalise applicants from private schools. Intellectual and political diversity has been allowed to wither, with liberal-Left opinions dominating among academics. Conservatives are fighting against a rising tide of intolerance in institutions that ought to protect free thought and inquiry.
社会工程方面的错误尝试，包括在某些情况下引入准配额制度，惩罚私立学校的申请者，也导致了教育体系的堕落。知识和政治的多样性枯萎，自由左派的观点在学术界占主导地位。保守派正在与本应保护自由思想和探究的大学中日益高涨的不宽容浪潮作斗争。
To some extent, the growth in the number of foreign students at British universities reflects the strength of the education on offer, at least in those that remain world-class. But it is also perverse that they can have a financial incentive to enrol non-British students because of the difference in the fees they are able to charge. Low-quality universities have been accused of becoming little more than visa factories, allowing many thousands of people to come to the UK, with not much obvious benefit to the country at large.
在某种程度上，英国大学外国学生数量的增长反映了英国所提供教育的实力，至少在那些仍然是世界级的大学中是如此。但是，由于大学能够收取的学费不同，大学可以有经济上的动机来招收非英国学生，这也是让人无法接受的。人们指责低质量的大学只不过是签证工厂，让成千上万的人来到英国，而整个国家却没有得到多少明显的好处。
The solution is expressly not to impose yet more quotas – this time to force British universities to prioritise British students. It would leave the institutions with an unresolved funding gap, while entangling them further in government bureaucracy and a commitment to social rather than academic outcomes. But it is clear that the university funding model needs root-and-branch reform, starting with the problems inherent in the current system of student loans.
解决方案明显不应再施加更多的配额——这一次是迫使英国大学优先考虑英国学生。这将使这些院校面临一个尚未解决的资金缺口，同时使它们进一步陷入政府官僚体制，并致力于社会而非学术成果。但很明显，大学的融资模式需要彻底改革，首先要解决当前学生贷款体系中固有的问题。
One option has been proposed by Conor Walsh at the Centre for Policy Studies. Universities would act as lenders to students, who would then pay them back for their studies. This would give the university a direct stake in their graduates’ futures and, combined with reforms to the amount that institutions can charge, could level the playing field for British and non-British applicants. It would not solve all of the problems afflicting higher education, but it would be considerably fairer to students, and the taxpayer, than the present scandalous system.
政策研究中心的康纳•沃尔什提出了一个选择。大学将充当学生的贷款人，然后由学生偿还学业费用。这将使大学对毕业生的未来有直接的利害关系，再加上大学收费额的改革，可以为英国和非英国申请人提供公平的竞争环境。它不会解决所有困扰高等教育的问题，但与目前丑闻缠身的体制相比，它对学生和纳税人来说要公平得多。