我不會讓兒子上大學美文

"Surely", I suggested to Jim's teacher, "the course Jim got on with such low marks would be the sort of course that wouldn't be worth doing anyway."

“真的是這樣，”我和吉米的老師建議道，“吉米得分很低的課程就沒有必要再讀下去。”

"Not at all," the teacher insisted, and then named a string of universities I'd barely heard of, claiming they'd be perfect for Jim.

“這是不對的，”老師堅持說，然後拿出一系列我幾乎都沒有聽過的大學的`列表給我看，說這些學校都適合吉米。

It was at this point I realized how completely out of touch I was with the current educational thought.

此時此刻我感覺自己完全不瞭解現在的教育理念。

In the early 1980s when I was at school, a student with such poor grades as Jim's would never be considered university material.

20世紀80年代早期，我還是學生的時候，像吉米這樣成績差的學生會被視爲不適合讀大學。

Since then the percentage of eligible population in Britain has risen from 14% to an astonishing 44%. The educational system is cramming even the most mediocre students into a degree curse.

從那時起，英國符合上大學的學生比例從14%上升到了44%。填鴨式的教育系統使得普通學生都可以繼續讀大學。

It affects the sort of the courses that universities offer: undemanding ones such as film studies and surfing; it affects the way universities advertise themselves—with student bar sizes and local clubs given priority over the quality of the courses.

這影響了大學教授的課程：要求不高的電影研究和衝浪；影響大學推銷自己的方式——學生酒吧大小和當地社團的重要性高於課程質量。

Another fact is that when I went to university, a degree still counted for something.

還有一個事實，我上大學時，學位還是有價值的。

These days, the degree is so devalued that you are far better off going straight into the job market than spending three years treading water, running up big debts.

而現在，學位已經貶值，你還不如直接參加工作，而不是冒險浪費三年的時間，積累鉅額債務。

Maybe it would be worth it if, as a result of his or her degree, your child would have a well-paid career.

上大學也許是值得的，因爲他或者她的學歷，你的孩子能有一份高薪的職業。

But there are now too many graduates running after too few graduate obs, and employers are becoming suspicious of the value of degrees.

但是太多的畢業生沒有達到畢業的要求，僱主們開始懷疑學位的價值。