经济复苏，美国大学入学人数下滑

In a Recovering Economy, a Decline in College Enrollment
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA August 08, 2013
美国大学
经济复苏，美国大学入学人数下滑
RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA 2013年08月08日
The long enrollment boom that swelled American colleges — and helped drive up their prices — is over, with grim implications for many schools.
美国大学长期招生繁荣的局面被打破，这对于许多学校而言前景堪忧。此前的求学热曾帮助拉高了大学学费。
College enrollment [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] in 2012-13, the first significant decline since the 1990s, but nearly all of that drop hit for-profit and community colleges; now, signs point to 2013-14 being the year when traditional four-year, nonprofit colleges begin a contraction that will last for several years. The college-age population is dropping after more than a decade of sharp growth, and many adults who opted out of a forbidding job market and went back to school during the recession have been drawn back to work by the economic recovery.
2012-2013学年，高校招生总人数[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]，创下自20世纪90年代以来最大学年跌幅，但该降幅影响的几乎都是营利性质的大学和社区学院。目前，各种迹象表明，传统的四年制非营利性大学就读人数将从2013-2014学年开始收缩，并且这一状况将持续数年。一方面，在超过十年的大幅增长后，大学适龄人口数正在下降；另一方面，随着经济的复苏，许多在经济衰退、就业市场严峻时选择回校深造的成年人，已经在经济复苏之际离校就业。
Hardest hit are likely to be colleges that do not rank among the wealthiest or most prestigious, and are heavily dependent on tuition revenue, raising questions about their financial health — even their survival.
最受打击的很可能是那些并非最富有或最有声望，并且严重依赖学费收入的大学。这使得它们的财务健康，甚至是未来存续受到质疑。
[要查看本图请先注册并登录]
William Widmer for The New York Times
新奥尔良洛约拉大学的打工学生克里斯托弗·索耶和卡西迪·埃马德正在搬床，这所学校要被迫大幅削减预算。
“There are many institutions that are on the margin, economically, and are very concerned about keeping their doors open if they can’t hit their enrollment numbers,” said David A. Hawkins, the director of public policy and research at the [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], which has more than 1,000 member colleges.
“有许多高校的经济状况岌岌可危，而且他们非常担心，如果达不到一定招生数量，学校将要被迫关门，”[要查看本链接请先注册并登录](National Association for College Admission Counseling)公共政策与研究主任大卫·A·霍金斯(David A. Hawkins)说。该协会有超过1000所会员学校。
The most competitive colleges remain unaffected, but gaining admission to middle-tier institutions will most likely get easier.
最有竞争力的学校并不受影响，但是被中等水平高校录取将会变得容易一些。
Colleges fear that their high prices and the concern over rising student debt are turning people away, and on Wednesday, President Obama again challenged them to rein in tuition increases. Colleges have resorted to deeper discounts and accelerated degree programs. In all, the four-year residential college experience as a presumed rite of passage for middle-class students is coming under scrutiny.
大学害怕高学费以及人们对学生债务日益沉重的担忧会让学生们放弃申请入学，而本周三，奥巴马(Obama)总统要求大学控制学费的上涨。它们已经采取了更大的折扣和加速学位课程的方式应对。总体来看，作为中产阶级家庭孩子理所当然的成长历程，四年寄宿制大学的经历正经受审视。
The most striking signs of change came from [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] and [要查看本链接请先注册并登录]. After the usual May 1 deadline for applicants to choose a college, Loyola and St. Mary’s each found that their admission offers had been accepted by about one-third fewer students than expected. Both institutions were forced to make millions of dollars in budget cuts and a late push for more enrollment.
改变迹象最显著的来自[要查看本链接请先注册并登录](Loyola University New Orleans)以及[要查看本链接请先注册并登录](St. Mary’s College of Maryland)。在惯常的学生申请大学截止日期5月1日后，这两所学校发现接受它们录取的学生比预期减少约三分之一。它们被迫削减数百万美元的预算，并且加紧争取更多的学生入学。
Loyola made a flurry of calls to students who had been accepted but had decided to go elsewhere, and had even paid deposits to other colleges. Professors and administrators who usually are not involved in the process made calls, along with the admissions officers, “and we did invite them to see if there was more we could do with aid,” said Roberta Kaskel, the interim vice president for enrollment management.
洛约拉大学向起初同意入学但后来改变主意的学生猛打电话，甚至争取那些已经向其他学校交付定金的学生。通常不参与招生的教授和行政管理人员，也和招生负责人一起打电话。“而且我们还请那些学生考虑，在助学金方面我们是否还有可以帮助到他们的地方，”负责招生管理的临时副校长罗伯塔·卡斯凯尔(Roberta Kaskel)说。
Many colleges traditionally round out their classes with a small number of students admitted after May 1, often taken from their waiting lists, and miscalculations as big or as damaging as those by St. Mary’s and Loyola are rare. But consultants hired by families to help with the admissions process say that this spring and summer, they have seen more colleges actively hunting for students, reaching out to those who had turned them down, or even to students who had never applied.
一般情况下，许多大学在5月1号之后只招收少量学生即完成招生工作，通常是从待选学生名单里选择，而像圣马丽和洛约拉这么大或这么有破坏性的失算极少见。但学生家长聘请的入学录取顾问说，今年春夏，他们发现许多大学积极寻找生源，接触那些拒绝它们的学生，甚至还联系从未申请的学生。
“After May 1, I got e-mails from three or four colleges saying, ‘We’ve still got spots, and we’re looking for people to fill them,’ and I don’t remember getting any in the past,” said Lisa Bleich, an admissions consultant in Westfield, N.J.
“5月1日之后，我收到三或四所学校的邮件。‘我们的招生名额还有余位，想补录学生，’我记得以前从来没有收到过这样的邮件，”新泽西州威斯特费尔德的入学顾问丽莎·柏拉希(Lisa Bleich)说。
“I had a client who had committed to one school, and then changed her mind and said she wanted to go to the University of Pittsburgh, where she had also been accepted,” she said. “They weren’t actively looking for more, but they agreed to take her, when a few years ago, they would have said, ‘No, we don’t have any space.’ ”
“我的一个客户先是承诺到一所学校就读，后来改变主意，说想去同样录取她的匹兹堡大学(University of Pittsburgh)，”她说，“匹兹堡大学没有很积极地去寻找更多学生，但也同意接收她。这要是在几年前，匹兹堡肯定会说，‘不行，我们已经没有名额了。’”
This summer, [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] in Virginia sent letters to students who had not applied but had strong academic credentials, saying that they had “been selected for admission” in the fall, and offering them financial aid. Randolph’s case is unusual, in that it is expanding, but it shows the lengths colleges will go to, to meet their enrollment targets.
今年夏天，弗吉尼亚州的[要查看本链接请先注册并登录](Randolph College)向没有申请该学校但成绩过硬的学生寄信，说他们已经“被选为同意录取的学生”，秋天可以入学，并且为他们提供助学金。伦道夫的例子不同寻常，虽然它正在扩大规模，但这也反映了高校为了达到招生目标，会做出多大让步。
“This is the first time we’ve tried this particular approach,” said Mike Quinn, the vice president for enrollment management. “Sometimes offering these qualified students a more generous grant will prompt them to start a conversation with us.”
“这是我们第一次采用这种特别的手段，”伦道夫学院招生管理副校长麦克·奎恩(Mike Quinn)说。“有时候给这些够格的学生提供更慷慨的补助将有助于和他们展开对话。”
Don McMillan, an admissions consultant in Boston, said his office fielded calls this week from families in Saudi Arabia and Italy, hoping to find their children places for a school year that, in some cases, is just a month away.
波士顿入学顾问唐·麦克米伦(Don McMillan)说，这周他的办公室不断接到来自沙特阿拉伯和意大利家庭的电话，希望给他们孩子找所学校，有的甚至要求申请一个月后就开学的秋季学期。
“We called about 15 colleges, and we found that about half still had openings for this fall and were willing to consider them, which really surprised me,” he said. “These are not Tufts, M.I.T., Harvard, schools like that, that will never have trouble filling up.”
“我们大概给15所大学打了电话，发现约一半的学校仍有今年秋季学期的名额，并且愿意考虑我的客户，这让我很吃惊，”他说。“我打电话的并不是塔夫茨大学(Tufts)、麻省理工学院(MIT)、哈佛大学(Harvard)之类的学校，那些学校永远不会有招不满学生的问题。”
College attendance grew slowly for more than two decades, until it began a steep climb from 15.2 million in 1999 to 20.4 million in 2011, according to census figures.
据人口普查数据显示，大学生人数在2011年为204万，与1999年的152万相比呈现了大幅上升，而在此之前的20多年里，大学生数量一直维持缓慢增长态势。
Several factors drove that boom: a population bulge increased the number of college-age Americans by about 20 percent; high school graduation rates climbed after years of stagnation; the percentage of recent high school graduates going to college continued an increase that started in the 1980s; and colleges drew a growing number of students from abroad.
推动这一繁荣的几个因素有：人口膨胀使美国的大学适龄青年数量增加了约20%；高中毕业率在停滞数年后开始攀升；高中毕业生继续读大学的比例从20世纪80年代开始持续增长；美国大学接收的外国学生越来越多。
The recession that began in 2007 steered still more people into college, especially adults who were past traditional college age and who enrolled in community colleges.
2007年开始的经济衰退使得更多的人涌入大学，尤其是已经超过传统大学入学年龄的成年人和之前就读社区大学的人。
But the number of Americans turning 18 hit its recent peak in 2009, and will continue to decline through 2016. High school graduation rates appear to have leveled off, and job prospects have improved, *** school a less attractive option.
但年满18岁的美国人数量在2009年达到了近期顶峰，并且将持续下跌至2016年。高中毕业率似乎已见顶回落，就业前景有所改善，使得上大学的吸引力下降。
Managing a college’s enrollment has become more complicated in recent years as the number of applications submitted by the average student has soared. The advent of online applications, and the [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] now used by about 500 colleges, has made it much easier to add to a student’s list without much thought. And colleges have encouraged the increase, barraging promising students with appeals, knowing that more applications means a lower percentage of students accepted, which moves a college up in the popular ranking systems.
随着普通学生提交的申请数量飙升，近年来大学的招生管理变得越来越复杂。在线申请的出现，以及目前约有500所大学使用的[要查看本链接请先注册并登录](Common Application)，使得学生不需要经过大量考虑，就可以轻松把某个大学加入申请清单。大学知道更多的申请人意味着更低的录取率，所以也鼓励这一增长，不停拉拢有希望的学生，这能提升它们在流行排名系统中的排位。
“It’s become really hard for colleges to tell which applicants are actually serious about them, and will accept their offers,” said Janet Rosier, an admissions consultant in Woodbridge, Conn.
“对大学来说，要想看出哪些人是认真的，会接受它们的录取，越来越困难了，”康涅狄格州伍德布里的入学顾问珍妮特·罗齐尔(Janet Rosier)说。
That is what happened to St. Mary’s, a state college, and Loyola, a Jesuit school where administrators say some visitors might have been dissuaded by extensive construction on campus.
这就是在州立大学圣马丽和耶稣会学校洛约拉发生的事，校方管理人员说，一些来访的学生看到学校在大面积破土施工，就可能望而却步了。
While Loyola made a renewed appeal to people it had already accepted, St. Mary’s simply reopened admissions, and put out word through counselors and community groups. Both colleges have been able to draw more students since May, but their fall classes will still be far short of what they had hoped.
洛约拉向它已经接受的学生发起了新一轮争取，而圣马丽干脆重新开启招生程序，并且向顾问和社区团体传达招生信息。从5月以来，它们都招到了更多的学生，但今年秋季入学学生数量仍将远不及预期。