(来源：EnglishCN.com)

That more people should go to college is usually taken as a given. People with college degrees make a lot more than people without them, and that difference has been growing. But does that mean that we should help more kids go to college--or that we should make it easier for people who didn't go to college to make a living?

应该让更多人上大学往往被视为理所当然。有大学学位的人比没有大学学位的人挣钱多得多，而这种差距还在扩大。但这就意味着我们应该帮助更多孩子上大学吗？或者，我们应该让未上大学的人更容易谋生吗？

We may be close to maxing out on the first strategy. Our high college drop-out rate--40% of kids who enroll in college don't get a degree within six years--may be a sign that we're trying to push too many people who aren't suited for college to enroll. It has been estimated that most people in their 20s who had college degrees were not in jobs that required them: another sign that we are pushing kids into college who will not get much out of it but debt.

在第一条策略上我们几乎尽了全力。我们大学的高辍学率或许表明我们在竭力推动太多不适合上大学的人入学——40%的读大学的孩子在6年内没拿到学位。据估计，在拥有大学学位的20多岁的人当中，大多数人并未从事与专业相关的工作。这也表明了我们在把孩子们推进大学，而他们除了债务却几无所得。

The benefits of putting more people in college are also oversold. Part of the college wage premium is an illusion.

使更多人读大学的好处也被过分颂扬了。大学毕业生工资提升有一部分属于假象。

People who go to college are, on average, smarter than people who don't. In an economy that increasingly rewards intelligence, you'd expect college grads to pull ahead of the pack even if their diplomas signified nothing but their smarts.

读大学的人一般比不读大学的人聪明一些。在一个日益奖赏才智的经济体制下，你总会期望大学毕业生成为同龄人中的佼佼者，即使他们的文凭除了意味着其聪明外别无其他。

College must make many students more productive workers. But at least some of the apparent value of a college degree, and maybe a lot of it, reflects the fact that employers can use it as a rough measure of job applicants' intelligence and willingness to work hard.

大学必须使许多学生成为更具生产力的工人。然而，在大学学位的表面价值中，至少有一些——甚至更多——能够反映这样一个事实：雇主们可以把它作为一个粗略标准，衡量求职者的聪明才智和积极肯干精神。

We could probably increase the number of high school seniors who are ready to go to college and likely to make it to graduation. But let's face it: college isn't for everyone, especially if it takes the form of four years of going to classes on a campus.

我们可能会增加愿意读大学的高中生人数，他们也很可能成功读到大学毕业。但我们必须直面一个问题：大学不是为所有人开设的，尤其是以在校园里上4年课这样一种形式。

To talk about college this way may sound élitist. It may even sound philistine, since the purpose of a liberal-arts education is to produce well-rounded citizens rather than productive workers.

如此谈论大学也许听上去有点精英主义的味道。它甚至显得庸俗不堪，因为文科教育的目的是造就全面发展的公民，而不是生产性的工人。

But perhaps it is more foolishly élitist to think that going to school until age 22 is necessary to being well-rounded, or to tell millions of kids that their future depends on performing a task that only a minority of them can actually accomplish.