上大学有什么用？

HIGHER education is one of the great successes of the welfare state. What was once the privilege of a few has become a middle-class entitlement, thanks mainly to government support. Some 3.5m Americans and 5m Europeans will graduate this summer. In the emerging world universities are booming: China has added nearly 30m places in 20 years. Yet the business has changed little since Aristotle taught at the Athenian Lyceum:young students still gather at an appointed time and place to listen to the wisdom of scholars.

福利国家有着众多的巨大成就，高等教育就是其中之一。得益于政府的支持，一度曾是少数人特权的高等教育已成为中产阶层的一项权利。每年夏天，美国约有 350 万学生，欧洲约有 500 万学生将从大学毕业。在新兴世界中，高等教育正在蓬勃发展：中国已在 20 年间增加了将近 3,000个学位 。然而，如今的这项产业同亚里士多德在雅典学园中教书的时代相比，并没有多大的变化：年轻的学生仍是聚集在指定的时间和地点，来聆听学者的智慧。

Now a revolution has begun, thanks to three forces: rising costs, changing demand and disruptive technology. The result will be the reinvention of the university.

如今，在三种力量——日益增长的成本，不断变化的要求和颠覆性的技术——的作用下，一场革命已经开始，其结果将是大学的彻底改变。

Higher education suffers from Baumol's disease—the tendency of costs to soar in labour-intensive sectors with stagnant productivity. Whereas the prices of cars, computers and much else have fallen dramatically, universities, protected by public-sector funding and the premium employers place on degrees, have been able to charge ever more for the same service. For two decades the cost of going to college in America has risen by 1.6 percentage points more than inflation every year.

高等教育得的是鲍莫尔成本病。它指的是这样一种趋势：在生产力停滞不前的劳动密集部门，成本往往会趋向于大幅上涨。就在汽车、计算机以及其他商品的价格大幅下降之时，因为有公共部门资助的保护，加之雇主对于学位的重视，大学一直能够对同样的服务收取更高的费用。在过去的 20 年中，在美国上大学的成本一直在上涨，每年的上涨幅度比通胀高出 1.6 个百分点。

For most students university remains a great deal; by one count the boost to lifetime income from obtaining a college degree, in net-present-value terms, is as much as $590,000. But for an increasing number of students who have gone deep into debt—especially the 47% in America and 28% in Britain who do not complete their course—it is plainly not value for money. And the state's willingness to pick up the slack is declining. In America government funding per student fell by 27% between 2007and 2012, while average tuition fees, adjusted for inflation, rose by 20%. In Britain tuition fees, close to zero two decades ago, can reach £9,000 ($15,000a year).

对于大多数学生来说，大学仍旧是一笔“大买卖”。据统计，以净现值计算，获得大学学位之于终生收入的提高相当于 590,000 美元。但是，对于那些越来越多的已经背上了沉重债务的学生来说，尤其是对占美国学生总数 47 ％和占英国学生总数 28% 的没有完成课程的学生来说，大学学位根本不值这么多。同时，政府提供资助的意愿也在下降。在美国，政府对每个学生的资助，在 2007 年 -2012 年间减少了 27% ，而同期平均学费，按照通胀调整后，却上涨了 20% 。在英国， 20 年前几乎为零的学费如今能够达到 9,000 英镑（合 15,000 美元一年）。

The second driver of change is the labour market. In the standard model of higher education, people go to university in their 20s: a degree is an entry ticket to the professional classes. But automation is beginning to have the same effect on white-collar jobs as it has on blue-collar ones. According to a study from Oxford University, 47% of occupations are at risk of being automated in the next few decades. As innovation wipes out some jobs and changes others, people will need to top up their human capital throughout their lives.

变化的第二种推动力是劳动力市场。在标准的高等教育模式中，人们都是在 20 岁左右上大学。因为，学位是进入职业阶层入场券。但是，自动化正在开始给白领工作带来它曾给蓝领工作所带来的相同的影响。据牛津大学研究，在未来的几十年内， 47% 的工作会面临被自动化的风险。创新能消除某些工作，也能改变某些工作，人们将有不得不在为了自己的一生中而增加人力资本。

By themselves, these two forces would be pushing change. A third—technology—ensures it. The internet, which has turned businesses from newspapers through music to book retailing upside down, will upend higher education. Now the MOOC, or “Massive Open Online Course”, is offering students the chance to listen to star lecturers and get a degree for a fraction of the cost of attending a university.

凭以上这两种力量自身就能够推动变化。第三种力量——技术——确保了这种变化。已经令媒体、音乐和图书零售这些产业发生天翻地覆变化的互联网将会颠覆高等教育。如今，大规模开放式网络课程（ MOOC ）正在给学生提供机会，使他们得以聆听明星教师的讲课，并且只需花费上大学费用的一小部分就可获得学位。

MOOCs started in 2008; and, as often happens with disruptive technologies, they have so far failed to live up to their promise. Largely because there is no formal system of accreditation,drop-out rates have been high. But this is changing as private investors and existing universities are drawn in. One provider, Coursera, claims over 8m registered users. Though its courses are free, it bagged its first $1m in revenues last year after introducing the option to pay a fee of between $30 and $100 to have course results certified. Another, Udacity, has teamed up with AT&T and Georgia Tech to offer an online master's degree in computing, at less than a third of the cost of the traditional version. Harvard Business School will soon offer an online “pre-MBA” for $1,500. Starbucks has offered to help pay for its staff to take online degrees with Arizona State University.

MOOC 始于 2008 年；就如经常发生在毁灭性技术身上的那种情况一样，截至目前， MOOC 一直未能兑现它们的承诺。主因是没有正式的认证体系，同时中途退出的比例也一直居高不下。但是，随着私人投资者和现有的大学被吸引进来，这种情况正在改变。 MOOC 的一位提供商 Coursera 自称有超过 800 万的注册用户。虽然课程是免费的，但是这家提供商已经因为在去年引入了支付 30 美元 -100 美元就可以得到认证的选项而收获了第一笔 100 万美元的收入。另一家提供商 Udacity 已经联合 AT&T 和佐治亚理工学院，以不到传统费用三分之一价格，提供计算机硕士学位的在线课程。哈佛商学院不久会提供在线 MBA 预备课程，费用是 1500 美元。星巴克已经帮助其雇员支付参与亚利桑那州州立大学在线课程的费用。

MOOCs will disrupt different universities in different ways. Not all will suffer. Oxford and Harvard could benefit.Ambitious people will always want to go to the best universities to meet each other, and the digital economy tends to favour a few large operators. The big names will be able to sell their MOOCs around the world. But mediocre universities may suffer the fate of many newspapers. Were the market for higher education to perform in future as that for newspapers has done over the past decade or two, universities’ revenues would fall by more than half, employment in the industry would drop by nearly 30% and more than 700 institutions would shut their doors.The rest would need to reinvent themselves to survive.

MOOC 会以不同的方式摧毁不同的大学。但是，不是所有的大学都会遭遇这种命运。哈佛和牛津能够从中获益。有野心的人总是想要上最好的大学，以便能够互相结识。同时，数字经济也往往是青睐少数的大型运作者。名校能够在全世界范围内卖出他们的 MOOC 。但是，普通的大学可能会遭遇许多报纸已经遭遇了的命运。如果高等教育市场在未来上演报纸在过去的一二十年间已经上演过的那一幕的话，大学的收入会减少一半以上，该产业的就业率会降低差不多 30% ， 700 多所大学可能会关门倒闭。其余的将会为了生存而彻底改变自己。

Like all revolutions, the one taking place in higher education will have victims. Many towns and cities rely on universities. In some ways MOOCs will reinforce inequality both among students (the talented will be much more comfortable than the weaker outside the structured university environment) and among teachers (superstar lecturers will earn a fortune, to the fury of their less charismatic colleagues).