Our universities remain a great success story – but standards are slipping
英国高等教育依旧成绩斐然，但办学质量隐忧渐显
Editorial: The record admissions are masking a deeper crisis – from young people dropping out of education to universities struggling with falling overseas recruitment
社评：录取创新高的表象下藏着深层危机：青年辍学、海外生源下滑，高校财政承压

At first glance, reports of the demise of the British higher education sector seem greatly exaggerated. Almost as excited as the young people discovering their A-level grades, the Universities and Colleges Admission Service (Ucas) breathlessly boasts that the 262,820 students who immediately found places on degree courses represents a record high – three per cent up on last year. The total enrolled, from all domiciles and including older entrants, is also up, to some 446,690, another record (excluding Scotland). The best part of half a million freshers heading for university sounds like cause for national celebration.

乍看之下，说英国高等教育行业江河日下，未免有些言过其实。A-level放榜日里，英国大学招生服务中心（UCAS）和查分的学子们一样振奋，高调宣布已有262820 名学生直接拿到本科录取，人数创历史新高，同比上涨3%。涵盖所有生源、大龄申请者在内的总入学人数也升至约44.67万，同样创下不含苏格兰地区的历史纪录。近五十万新生即将踏入大学校园，听起来俨然是一件值得举国庆贺的好事。

Indeed, it is, as it also is for the individuals embarking on the next phase of their transition to adulthood. However, it is not the whole picture. A demographic bulge has played some part in boosting numbers, but the more grim countervailing story is the 58,000 18-year-olds whom the Department for Education estimates received no exam results at all, good or bad, because they have already dropped out of the entire education and training system.

诚然，这份成绩值得肯定，对即将开启人生新阶段的学子个人而言更是如此。但这远非全貌。适龄人口增长确实推高了入学数字，但更严峻的现实是：英国教育部估计，有5.8万名18岁青少年根本没拿到任何考试成绩，无论好坏，因为他们早已辍学，彻底脱离了教育与培训体系。

Before long, they will be classified under the unlovely term “NEET” – not in education, employment or training. There they will join almost a million others aged 18 to 24 who are both economically and educationally inactive. That represents a calamitous waste of potential.

用不了多久，他们就会被归入一个刺耳的分类NEET族，即既不接受教育、也不就业、更不参加职业培训的群体。届时，英国18至24岁既不工作也不读书的闲置青年总数将逼近百万，这是对人才潜力的灾难性浪费。

For the longer term, there are some more optimistic signs that those who might otherwise end up with no skills or qualifications can – and wish to – pursue apprenticeships and technical training, not as some second-best option but as a proud choice, and one that both avoids accumulating student debt and can lead to well-paid professional careers.

长远来看也不乏积极信号：那些原本可能一无所长、拿不到任何学历的年轻人，有意愿也有渠道选择学徒制项目与职业技术培训。他们不再将此当作退而求其次的退路，而是主动做出的正向选择，既能避开学生贷款的债务压力，未来也能获得高薪的职业发展路径。

The “parity of esteem” between the academic and the technical long desired by successive governments may be slowly coming to pass. Certainly, there needs to be a better balance in the system, one that sees fewer graduates becoming unemployed, and thus later-entry NEETs, or finding themselves taking work far less intellectually demanding than the more traditional graduate paths (and on the road to permanent, spirit-destroying indebtedness). Factoring in the cost of accommodation, the deal society is giving its young people is much less rosy than the one painted by Ucas.

历届英国政府呼吁多年的学术教育与职业教育地位平等，或许正在慢慢成为现实。毋庸置疑，这套教育体系需要更好的平衡：减少毕业生失业、最终沦为NEET族的情况，也避免更多人做着远低于学历要求的工作，还背着消磨心气的沉重债务看不到头。算上住宿成本，年轻人从这套体系里得到的实际回报，远没有UCAS宣传的那样美好。

The third connected dimension of this story is the financial plight of the universities themselves. While in some respects student numbers are indeed high, and universities are competing hard for the brightest, and matriculating ever more, the flow of lucrative foreign students is slowing.

这场困局的第三个层面，是高校自身的财政困境。尽管从总量看学生规模确实庞大，各校也在拼命争抢优质生源、持续扩招，但能带来高额学费收入的国际生源，增长势头正在明显放缓。

It is their high fees that crucially subsidise the home undergraduates and also the universities’ research programmes. Yet the political obsession with getting the immigration figures down has had the possibly unintended but certainly unwelcome consequence of depressing university revenues. Hence the scramble among the top institutions to recruit more British undergraduates to make up the shortfall in overseas students.

正是国际生的高额学费，在补贴本土本科生的培养成本，同时支撑着高校的科研项目。然而，政坛一味执着于压低移民数据，产生了意料之外也绝不受欢迎的后果：高校营收持续缩水。也正因如此，英国顶尖院校如今都在拼命扩招本土本科生，填补国际生减少带来的收入缺口。

This has a major knock-on effect on institutions lower down the pecking order, especially those that could previously rely on the Ucas clearing system to fill the labs and the lecture halls. Many of the former polytechnics, and others, took on significant debt to finance expansion, typically in business and IT schools to entice Chinese and Indian students, but have now been left with the liabilities and with little chance of recruiting the necessary numbers because of restrictions on visa numbers.

这对排名靠后的院校冲击尤为严重，过去它们还能靠UCAS补录阶段招满学生，填满实验室和教室。很多前身是理工学院的院校及其他普通高校，此前曾大举举债扩建，尤其是扩招商学院和IT学院，以此吸引中印学生。如今债务还背在身上，签证政策收紧后却根本招不到足够的生源，陷入进退两难的境地。

It is a mess, but not an insoluble one. As has been on the agenda for almost two decades, student flows, which can badly distort the migration data, should be taken out of the mainstream immigration statistics, and recorded separately. Despite some gaming of the system, and a degree of fraud, most overseas students will return home sooner or later and not spend the rest of their lives on benefits in the UK.

局面虽乱，但并非无解。近二十年来不断有人提议：学生流动会严重扭曲移民统计数据，应当将其从主流移民数据中剥离，单独统计。尽管确实存在钻制度空子、甚至造假的情况，但绝大多数国际生迟早都会回国，并不会一辈子留在英国领取福利。

If the universities can be put back on a sound financial footing through such a sensible step, that is surely preferable to an unnecessary series of collapses. What’s more, at times of sluggish growth and depressed tax revenues, the higher education sector has long been a great British success story – and a major export earner. The country can ill afford to weaken one of its few comparative advantages simply to massage the migration numbers. That, in exam terms, would be a definite fail.

通过这项合理调整让高校重回健康财政轨道，总好过眼睁睁看着一批院校毫无必要地走向倒闭。更何况在经济增长乏力、财政税收承压的当下，高等教育一直是英国的亮眼名片，也是重要的出口创汇产业。仅仅为了美化移民数据就削弱本国为数不多的竞争优势，英国根本承担不起这个代价。用考试评分来打比方的话，这种操作绝对是不及格。

【今日词汇】

degree courses 本科学位课程

clearing system 招生补录系统

freshers 大学新生

home undergraduates 本土本科生

overseas/foreign students 国际留学生

NEET (not in education, employment or training) 三不青年（不读书、不就业、不培训）

slipping standards 办学质量下滑

record admissions 录取人数创新高

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