一張圖表告訴你為什麼大學不適合所有人

對此，專家們會說，雖然攻讀學位的費用不斷增加，但是就讀大學依然有所回報。有統計資料證明了這一觀點。與只有高中學歷的工人相比，大學畢業生一生平均多收入100萬美元，最終使高達六位數的前期投資得以回報。但是，中途退學或大學畢業時債台高築、無法使學位投資有所回報的學生案例比比旨是。我們如何使統計資料和具體案例保持一致呢？紐約聯邦儲備銀行（Federal Reserve Bank of New York）提供的圖表說明，如果我們只著眼於平均情況，就會錯失很多信息：與普通的高中畢業生相比，底層四分之一擁有大學學歷的工薪階層所得薪酬大體相當，而且40年來這種情況沒有發生真正的改變。事實上，這個圖表說明，或許由於高薪藍領工作（如製造業工作）的消失，大學學位對底層四分之一的工薪階層來說更加重要。當然，過去40年來攻讀學位的費用增長了12倍，而把通貨膨脹因素考慮在內後，大學畢業生的薪酬並沒有出現增加。If you listen to the experts, they』ll tell you that, despite the rising cost of a degree, college still pays off.And the statistics bear this argument out. A college graduate will on average make $1 million more than a worker with just a high school degree over the course of his lifetime, making even a six-figure upfront investment well worth it in the end. Yetanecdotal evidence abounds of students who either flunked out of college or graduated with large debt loads and are still unable to land jobs that will make the investment in a degree pay off.How do we reconcile the statistics with these stories? This chart from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that we can miss a lot when looking at just the average experience:The bottom quarter of earners with a college degree don』t make more money than the average high school graduate. And this hasn』t really changed much in 40 years. In fact, this graphic shows that a college degree has become more valuable even for the bottom quarter of earners, likely as a result of the evaporation of high-paying blue collar jobs, like those in the manufacturing industries. Of course, over the past 40 years, the cost of a degreehas increased 12-fold, while a degree holder isn』t making more money at all, when accounting for inflation.因此，考慮到前期對大學學位的巨額投資，如果不就讀大學，更多人的經濟狀況或許會更好。但是筆者在此提出幾點注意事項。首先，我們無法給出如果不就讀大學，底層四分之一的大學畢業生確切的工資數額。此外，這個問題可以歸結為職業選擇：許多工作有學歷要求，但是提供的薪酬並不豐厚。如果有人出於賺錢以外的其他原因攻讀學位，那麼前期投資仍然是值得的。儘管如此，以上圖表成為公私部門需要做出重大調整，從而更有效地提供高等教育的有力證據。遺憾的是，對數百萬美國家長來說，當他們需要決定如何讓孩子就讀大學，以及選擇哪所大學就讀時，這條信息的參考作用極為有限。行為經濟學中有一條固定原則，即人們經常高估自身的能力，而且我們可以從成倍增加的大學費用中看出這一點。高達25%的大學畢業生不讀大學也有可能改善自身經濟狀況，但事實上，所有人都認為大學投資能夠帶來更高回報。此外，在做出就讀大學的決定之前，學生們通常並不清楚他們在大學中會有什麼樣的進展，他們會攻讀哪種學位或從事哪種職業。這使情況變得更加複雜。有人指出，所有這些不確定性成為我們加大投資，以獲得公眾對高等教育支持的證據。有大量證據表明，自學學生產生經濟學家所謂的「溢出效應」，而且高等教育使整個社會受益。因此，使用納稅資金為高等教育買單是合理的。由於學生事先不清楚自己將從哪種學位受益，學生可能完全放棄學業，使整個社會受損。有證據表明，這種情況正在發生。與此同時，給不確定學習或從事哪個行業的學生的最佳建議，是在選擇大學時應該有成本意識，在開始攻讀學位和確信如何運用學位之前，不要害怕等待。（財富中文網）翻譯：喬樹靜/汪皓So, it』s quite likely that, given the huge upfront investment for a college degree, many more workers today would have been better off not going to college at all. There are a few caveats that should be mentioned, however. First, we don』t know for sure how much money this bottom quarter of degree-holding earners would have made without their college education. Furthermore, much of this could boil down to career choice: there are many jobs that require a degree but don』t pay very well. If someone earns a degree for reasons beyond making more money, it could be that the upfront investment is worthwhile regardless.That being said, the above graph is certainly evidence that both the public and private sector need to make serious changes to provide higher education more efficiently. Unfortunately, this bit of information isn』t really helpful for the millions of Americans who need to decide how and where to send their kids to college.There is a well-established principle in behavioral economics that people systematically overestimate their abilities in general, and we can see this in the exponential increase in college costs. Up to 25% of college grads would probably be better off not pursuing a degree, yet nobody actually thinks they』re going to be the ones for whom the investment doesn』t pay off.Further compounding the problem is the fact that students usually don』t have a great idea of how they are going to fare in college, or what sort of degree or career they will pursue until after they』ve already made the decision to attend.One could argue that all this uncertainty is evidence that we should be investing more in public support of higher education. There』s plenty of evidence that there are what economists call 「spillover effects」 from students educating themselves, that society as a whole benefits from higher education. So there is justification for paying for higher education with tax dollars. And since students don』t know ahead of time what degree they will personally benefit from, it』s possible that students will just begin to forego college altogether, hurting society in general. There』s evidence that this is beginning to happen.In the meantime, students who are unsure of what they want to study or do are probably best advised to be very cost-conscious when choosing a college, and to be unafraid to wait until they are sure how they will use their degree before they start to pursue one.

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