美国阶级分化严重，教育难以改变贫困命运

For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall
By JASON DePARLE August 03, 2013
美国大学
美国阶级分化严重，教育难以改变贫困命运
JASON DePARLE 2013年08月03日
GALVESTON, Tex. — Angelica Gonzales marched through high school in Goth armor — black boots, chains and cargo pants — but undermined her pose of alienation with a place on the honor roll. She nicknamed herself after a metal band and vowed to become the first in her family to earn a college degree.
德克萨斯州加尔维斯顿——安吉莉卡·冈萨雷斯(Angelica Gonzales)在高中时走的是“哥特路线”——黑靴子、链条和工装裤——她的优等生身份和她的奇装异服格格不入。她给自己起的昵称来自一个金属乐队，她立志成为家族里的第一个获得大学学位的人。
“I don’t want to work at Walmart” like her mother, she wrote to a school counselor.
“我不想像我妈妈那样在沃尔玛超市工作”，她写信给学校辅导员。
Weekends and summers were devoted to a college-readiness program, where her best friends, Melissa O’Neal and Bianca Gonzalez, shared her drive to “get off the island” — escape the prospect of dead-end lives in luckless Galveston. Melissa, an eighth-grade valedictorian, seethed over her mother’s boyfriends and drinking, and Bianca’s bubbly innocence hid the trauma of her father’s death. They stuck together so much that a tutor called them the “triplets.”
她的周末和暑期都贡献给了大学升学辅导班，在那里，她和她最好的朋友，玛丽莎·奥尼尔(Melissa O’Neal)以及比安卡·冈萨雷斯(Bianca Gonzalez)分享“离开这个小岛”的动力——她要逃离这不幸的加尔维斯顿，在这里生活没有出路。玛丽莎是八年级毕业礼上致告别辞的学生代表，她母亲的男友们和酗酒问题让她气恼不已。比安卡活泼天真的外表下，隐藏着父亲去世的创痛。她们整天形影不离，有个助教叫她们“三胞胎”。

Low-income strivers face uphill climbs, especially at Ball High School, where a third of the girls’ class failed to graduate on schedule. But by the time the triplets donned mortarboards in the class of 2008, their story seemed to validate the promise of education as the great equalizer.
低收入人群的奋斗之路更加陡峭。尤其是在波尔高中(Ball High School)，女生班里有三分之一的人不能如期毕业。但是到2008年“三胞胎”毕业时，她们的去向似乎验证了“教育是伟大的均衡器”的说法。
Angelica, a daughter of a struggling Mexican immigrant, was headed to [要查看本链接请先注册并登录]. Bianca enrolled in community college, and Melissa left for Texas State University, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s alma mater.
安吉莉卡来自一个苦苦挣扎的墨西哥移民家庭，她去了[要查看本链接请先注册并登录](Emory University)；比安卡被社区大学录取；而玛丽莎上了德克萨斯州立大学(Texas State University)，那也是前总统林顿·B·约翰逊(Lyndon B. Johnson)的母校。
“It felt like we were taking off, from one life to another,” Melissa said. “It felt like, ‘Here we go!’ ”
“这感觉就像是我们从一种生活飞跃到另一种生活，”玛丽莎说，“感觉就像是‘我们出发咯！’”
Four years later, their story seems less like a tribute to upward mobility than a study of obstacles in an age of soaring economic inequality. Not one of them has a four-year degree. Only one is still studying full time, and two have crushing debts. Angelica, who left Emory owing more than $60,000, is a clerk in a Galveston furniture store.
四年后，她们的故事似乎不能作为人往高处走的范本，而更像在印证飞速发展的经济不平等时代的阻碍。她们都没有获得本科学位。只有一个人仍在全职读书，有两人债台高筑。安吉莉卡背着超过6万美元的债务从埃默里退了学，现在是加尔维斯顿一个家具店的职员。
Each showed the ability to do college work, even excel at it. But the need to earn money brought one set of strains, campus alienation brought others, and ties to boyfriends not in school added complications. With little guidance from family or school officials, college became a leap that they braved without a safety net.
她们有能力应付高校的学业，甚至表现突出。然而对赚钱的需求、与校园生活的疏离给她们带来了一系列压力，对校外男友的依赖让情况更加复杂。没有家庭或校方的引导，上大学对于她们来说就成为了没有防护网的勇敢一跃。
The story of their lost footing is also the story of something larger — the growing role that education plays in preserving class divisions. Poor students have long trailed affluent peers in school performance, but from grade-school tests to college completion, the gaps are growing. With school success and earning prospects ever more entwined, the consequences carry far: education, a force meant to erode class barriers, appears to be fortifying them.
她们的失落反映出一个更严重的问题——教育对阶级分化的作用越来越明显。贫困学生的学习成绩长期落后于富裕的同学，但是从小学考试到大学毕业，这个差距越来越大。随着学业成就与收入前景越来越挂钩，其后果也更深远：教育——这一本应该消除阶级壁垒的力量，反而加重了阶级差距。
“Everyone wants to think of education as an equalizer — the place where upward mobility gets started,” said Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. “But on virtually every measure we have, the gaps between high- and low-income kids are widening. It’s very disheartening.”
“每个人都想要把教育当作一种均衡器——接受教育就是趋上流动的开始，”加州大学欧文分校(University of California, Irvine)的经济学家格雷格·J·邓肯(Greg J. Duncan)表示，“但是，几乎每一种测量标准都表明，高收入和低收入儿童的差距正在加大。这太令人沮丧了。”
The growing role of class in academic success has taken experts by surprise since it follows decades of equal opportunity efforts and counters racial trends, where differences have narrowed. It adds to fears over recent evidence suggesting that low-income Americans have lower chances of upward mobility than counterparts in Canada and Western Europe.
几十年来，美国已在机会均等及反对种族倾向方面做出努力，差异已经缩小，然而阶级对学业成就的影响越来越大，这让专家们感到意外。近期还有证据表明，低收入的美国人比同等条件的加拿大人和西欧人向上的机会更少，这一结论更加令人担忧。
Thirty years ago, there was a 31 percentage point difference between the share of prosperous and poor Americans who earned bachelor’s degrees, according to Martha J. Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski of the University of Michigan. Now the gap is 45 points.
密歇根大学(University of Michigan)的玛莎·J·贝利(Martha J. Bailey)和苏珊·M·戴纳斯基(Susan M. Dynarski)表示，30年前，在美国，有学士学位的富人和穷人的差额是31个百分点，而现在已达到45。
While both groups improved their odds of finishing college, the affluent improved much more, widening their sizable lead.
尽管两个群体大学毕业的几率都增加了，但富裕群体增加得更多，因此将差距进一步拉大。
Likely reasons include soaring incomes at the top and changes in family structure, which have left fewer low-income students with the support of two-parent homes. Neighborhoods have grown more segregated by class, leaving lower-income students increasingly concentrated in lower-quality schools. And even after accounting for financial aid, the costs of attending a public university have risen 60 percent in the past two decades. Many low-income students, feeling the need to help out at home, are deterred by the thought of years of lost wages and piles of debt.
可能的原因包括上层人群收入的飙升，家庭结构的变化导致能得到双亲家庭支持的低收入学生更少了。社区间也因阶级而分化得更严重，低收入学生越来越集中在较低质量的学校。即使把助学金计算在内，上一所公立大学的花费也在过去20年间上涨了60%。很多低收入学生都感觉家里需要他们帮忙，他们一想到要损失几年的工资，同时背下沉重的债务，便望而生畏。
In placing their hopes in education, the Galveston teenagers followed a tradition as old as the country itself. But if only the prosperous become educated — and only the educated prosper — the schoolhouse risks becoming just another place where the fortunate preserve their edge.
加尔维斯顿的这几个女孩把希望寄托在教育上，她们遵循着一个和国家本身一样古老的传统。但是如果只有富裕的群体能受教育——而且只有受过教育才能致富——那么校园的存在就很可能变得毫无意义。
“It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that a low-income student, no matter how intrinsically bright, moves up the socioeconomic ladder,” said Sean Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford. “What we’re talking about is a threat to the American dream.”
“低收入学生，无论天资如何聪颖，在社会经济阶梯上攀升的可能性越来越小，”斯坦福大学(Stanford)的社会学家肖恩·里尔顿(Sean Reardon)表示，“这是对美国梦的一个威胁。”
High School
高中生涯
No one pictured the teenagers as even friends, much less triplets. Angelica hid behind dark eyeliner, Melissa’s moods turned on the drama at home, and Bianca, in the class behind, seemed even younger than she was. What they had in common was a college-prep program for low-income teenagers, Upward Bound, and trust in its counselor, Priscilla Gonzales Culver, whom everyone called “Miss G.”
当时没人看得出她们三个是朋友，更不用说是三胞胎了。那时安吉莉卡画着黑眼线，玛丽莎的情绪经常闹得一家人鸡犬不宁，而比安卡是下一届的学生，看上去比她的实际年龄还要小。她们的共同点，就是她们都参加了针对低收入青少年的大学预科课程——“向上跃进”项目(Upward Bound)，而且她们都很信赖该项目的辅导员普里西拉·冈萨雷斯·卡尔弗(Priscilla Gonzales Culver)，大家都叫她“G老师”。
Angelica was the product of a large Mexican-American family, which she sought both to honor and surpass. Her mother, Ana Gonzales, had crossed the border illegally as a child, gained citizenship and settled the clan in Galveston, where she ruled by force of will. She once grounded Angelica for a month for coming home a minute late. With hints of both respect and fear, Angelica never called her “Mom” — only “Mrs. Lady.”
安吉莉卡来自一个墨西哥裔大家庭，她既以此为荣，又想超越这个身份。她的母亲安娜·冈萨雷斯(Ana Gonzales)，在儿童时期非法越境，获得了美国国籍，并在加尔维斯顿定居下来。她定的家规很严，有一次就因为安吉莉卡晚回家一分钟而让她禁足一个月。安吉莉卡对她既尊重又畏惧，她从来不叫她“妈妈”——只叫她“夫人太太”(“Mrs. Lady”)。
Home was an apartment in a subdivided house, with relatives in the adjacent units. Family meals and family feuds went hand in hand. One of Angelica’s uncles bore scars from his days in a street gang. Her grandmother spoke little English. With a quirky mix of distance and devotion, Angelica studied German instead of Spanish and gave the fiesta celebrating her 15th birthday a Goth theme, with fairies and dragons on the tabletop globes. “Korn chick,” she fancifully called herself, after the dissonant metal band.
她的家是一套从别墅里隔出来的公寓，亲戚们住在相邻的单元里。有多少家庭聚餐就有多少家庭纷争。安吉莉卡的一个舅舅曾经是街头黑帮，脸上留下了疤；她的外祖母几乎不会说英语。安吉莉卡的举动奇妙地掺杂着疏离和热诚，她没有学西班牙语，而是学了德语，她的15岁生日聚会以哥特为主题，在桌面的地球仪上画着仙女和龙。她给自己起了个奇特的外号“科恩小妞”(Korn chick)，是以一个吵闹的金属乐队命名的。
But school was all business. “Academics was where I shined,” she said. Her grandmother and aunts worked at Walmart alongside Mrs. Lady, and Angelica was rankled equally by how little money they made and how little respect they got. Upward Bound asked her to rank the importance of college on a scale of 1 to 10.
但上学才是她最关心的事。她说：“我在学业上表现出色。”她的外祖母和姨妈们和“夫人太太”一起在沃尔玛超市工作，安吉莉卡受够了她们可怜的工资和遭受的白眼。“向上跃进”项目让她用1到10来描述大学的重要程度。
“10,” she wrote.
她写了“10”。
Melissa also wanted to get off the island — and more immediately out of her house. “When I was about 7, my mom began dating and hanging around a bunch of drunks,” she wrote on the Upward Bound application. For her mother, addiction to painkillers and severe depression followed. Her grandparents offered her one refuge, and school offered another.
玛丽莎也想离开这个小岛——说得更直白一点，是想离开她的家。“当我7岁的时候，我妈妈开始约会，和一群酒鬼混在一起，”她在“向上跃进”的申请书上写道。她的母亲对止痛药成瘾，而且有严重的抑郁症。外祖父母给了她庇护，而学校是她的另一个避难所。
“I like to learn — I’m weird,” she said.
“我喜欢读书——我是个怪人，”她说道。
By eighth grade, Melissa was at the top of her class and sampling a course at a private high school. She yearned to apply there but swore the opposite to her mother and grandparents. Protecting families from their own ambition is a skill many poor students learn. “I knew we didn’t have the money,” Melissa said. “I felt like I had no right to ask.”
到了八年级，玛丽莎在班里名列前茅，被选到一所私立高中上一门课。她向往申请去那里读书，却对母亲和外祖父母说想去另一所学校。对家人隐瞒自己的理想，是很多贫穷的孩子学到的一种技能。“我知道我们没有钱，”玛丽莎说，“我觉得我没有权利提要求。”
New to Upward Bound, Melissa noticed that one student always ate alone and crowded in beside her. “She forced her friendship on me,” Angelica said.
刚来“向上跃进”时，玛丽莎发现有个同学总是一个人吃饭，于是她坐在了她旁边。“是她‘强迫’我和她做朋友的，”安吉莉卡说。
Bianca joined the following year with a cheerfulness that disguised any trace of family tragedy. As the eldest of four siblings, she had spent the years since her father’s death as a backup mother. To Bianca, family meant everything.
比安卡是在下一年入学的。她快乐的外表让人看不出任何家庭不幸的迹象。自从父亲去世后，作为四个兄弟姐妹中的老大，她多年来肩负着“候补妈妈”的角色。对于比安卡来说，家庭意味着全部。
She arrived just in time for the trip at the heart of triplets lore — the Upward Bound visit to Chicago. While they had known they wanted more than Galveston offered, somewhere between the Sears Tower and Northwestern University they glimpsed what it might be. The trip at once consecrated a friendship and defined it around shared goals.
她来的时候正赶上“向上跃进”组织的芝加哥旅游，此行也是三胞胎传奇的核心部分。她们知道自己不满足于加尔维斯顿的生活，于是在西尔斯大厦(Sears Tower)和西北大学(Northwestern University)之间寻找她们的落脚点。这次旅行成就了她们的友谊，她们共同的目标也奠定了这段友情。
“We wanted to do something better with our lives,” Angelica said.
“我们想要过更好的生活，”安吉莉卡说。
Ball High was hard on goals. In addition to Bosco, a drug-sniffing dog profiled in the local paper, the campus had four safety officers to deter fights. A pepper spray incident in the girls’ senior year sent 50 students to the school nurse. Only 2 percent of Texas high schools were ranked “academically unacceptable.” Ball was among them.
波尔高中很难帮她们实现这个目标。除了上过当地报纸的缉毒犬博斯科(Bosco)，校园里还安排了四个安全官员负责制止斗殴。在她们就读的最后一年，一起胡椒喷雾事件把50个学生都送到了医务室。德州只有2%的高中被评为“不合格学校”，波尔名列其中。
Melissa now marvels at what a good parent her mother has become to her younger brother after she stopped drinking and was treated for her depression. But when she returned from the high school trip to Chicago, the conflicts grew so intense that Miss G. took her in one night. “I really put her through a lot,” said Melissa’s mother, Pam Craft. “Everything she did, she did on her own — I’m so proud of her.” Miss G.’s notes variously observed that “there are limited groceries,” “student is overwhelmed” and “she’s basically raising herself.”
玛丽莎对于母亲在戒酒和治疗抑郁症之后成为了弟弟的好母亲而感到惊奇。但是当她从芝加哥回来时，母女俩的冲突越来越激烈，以至于有天晚上G老师把她带走了。“我的确让她承受了很多，”玛丽莎的母亲帕姆·克拉夫特(Pam Craft)说，“所有事情都是她自己完成的——我很为她骄傲。”G老师的笔记本上也记录着她多方面的观察：“日用品少得可怜”、“学生不堪重负”以及“她基本上是自己在养活自己”。
While faulting her mother’s choices in men, Melissa made a troubling choice of her own with her ambitionless boyfriend. Among the many ways he let her down was getting another girl pregnant. Yet as many times as they broke up, they got back together again. “He is going to bring her down,” Miss G. warned.
在指责母亲总是选错男人的同时，玛丽莎自己也遇人不淑，她找了个不上进的男友。这个男人总是让她失望，甚至还搞大了另一个女孩的肚子。但是他们几次分分合合，最后还是在一起。“他这样下去会拖垮她的，”G老师曾发出过这样的警告。
Despite the turmoil, Melissa earned “commended” marks, the highest level, on half her state skills tests, edited the yearbook and published two opinion articles in the Galveston newspaper, one of them about her brother’s struggle with autism. Working three jobs, she missed so much school that she nearly failed to graduate, but she still finished in the top quarter of her class. It was never clear which would prevail — her habit of courting disaster or her talent for narrow escapes.
虽然生活动荡，玛丽莎却赢得了推荐奖，在州的技能测试中有一半考试取得最高分，编辑年刊，还在加尔维斯顿的报纸上发表了两篇评论文章，其中一篇谈到了她弟弟与自闭症的抗争。因为要打三份工，她的功课落下很多，差点就不能毕业，但她还是以全班前四分之一的排名完成了学业。她总是厄运连连，却总能幸免于难，永远不知道哪种运气会占上风。
Returning from Chicago, Bianca jumped a grade, which allowed her to graduate with Melissa and Angelica.
从芝加哥回来之后，比安卡跳了一级，这样她就能和玛丽莎还有安吉莉卡一起毕业了。
Angelica kept *** A’s on her way to a four-year grade-point average of 3.9. “Amazingly bright and dedicated,” one instructor wrote. A score of 1,240 on the math and reading portions of her SAT ranked her at the 84th percentile nationwide. When the German teacher suddenly quit, the school tapped her to finish teaching the first-year course.
安吉莉卡的成绩一直保持在A的水平，四年下来，她的平均绩点达到了3.9。她的一个导师在评语里写道：“（她）聪明过人、专心致志。”在学术评估测试(SAT)中，她的数学和阅读部分考了1240分，在全国排在前84%。有个德语老师突然离职，学校就请她把第一年的课程教完。
Outside school, Angelica’s life revolved around her boyfriend, Fred Weaver, who was three years older and drove a yellow Sting Ray. Fred was devoted — too devoted, Mrs. Lady thought, and she warned Angelica not to let the relationship keep her from going to college. Fred’s father owned a local furniture store, and everyone could see that Fred’s dream was to run it with Angelica at his side.
安吉莉卡的课外生活围绕着她的男友弗雷德·韦弗(Fred Weaver)。他比安吉莉卡大三岁，开一辆黄色的雪佛兰克尔维特(Sting Ray)跑车。弗雷德对感情很投入——“夫人太太”认为他过于投入，并提醒安吉莉卡别因为谈恋爱影响她上大学。弗雷德的父亲在当地经营一间家具店，大家都知道弗雷德的愿望就是能和安吉莉卡一起经营这家店。
Senior year raced by, with Miss G. doing her best to steer frightened and distracted students though the college selection process. Despite all the campus visits, choices were made without the intense supervision that many affluent students enjoy. Bianca, anchored to the island by family and an older boyfriend, chose community college. Melissa picked Texas State in San Marcos because “the application was easiest.”
高中的最后一年过得飞快。在择校方面，G老师尽力引导这些恐慌又困惑的学生。虽然参观了很多所大学，但她们在择校时，并没有像很多富裕学生那样，享受到外界无微不至的帮助。比安卡因家人和她那年长男友的缘故回到了小岛，选择了社区大学；玛丽莎选择了圣马科斯的德克萨斯州立大学，因为“申请是最简单的”。
Angelica had thought of little beyond Northwestern and was crestfallen when she was rejected. She had sent a last-minute application to a school in Atlanta that had e-mailed her. Only after getting in did she discover that she had achieved something special.
安吉莉卡只申请了西北大学(Northwestern)，当她收到拒信的时候心灰意冷。后来她赶在截止前最后一分钟申请了亚特兰大的一所学校，这所学校之前给她发过邮件。但是，她直到入学后才发现她所收获的“非比寻常”。
Emory cost nearly $50,000 that year, but it was one of a small tier of top schools that promised to meet the financial needs of any student good enough to be admitted. It had even started a program to relieve the neediest students of high debt burdens. “No one should have to give up their goals and dreams because financial challenges stand in the way,” [要查看本链接请先注册并登录].
埃默里大学当年的学费将近五万美元，但这是一流大学中极少数承诺只要学生足够优秀，被录取后都能满足其经济方面需求的学校。学校甚至还推出了一项为高债务的贫困学生减轻负担的计划。“不应因为经济压力的阻碍而放弃他们的目标和梦想，”[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]。
Plus an unseen campus a thousand miles away had an innate appeal. “How many times do you get the chance to completely reinvent yourself?” Angelica said.
在1000英里之外，这所看不见的校园有一种与生俱来的吸引力。安吉莉卡说：“一生中你有几次机会能彻底重塑自我呢？”
Rich-Poor Gap Grows
贫富差距加大
If Melissa and Angelica felt that heading off to university set them apart from other low-income students, they were right. Fewer than 30 percent of students in the bottom quarter of incomes even enroll in a four-year school. And among that group, fewer than half graduate.
如果玛丽莎和安吉莉卡认为上大学能让她们和其他低收入学生区分开来，那她们想得没错。在收入排在最后四分之一的学生中，只有不到30%的人能够升读大学。而在这个群体当中，只有不到半数能毕业。
Income has always shaped academic success, but its importance is growing. Professor Reardon, the Stanford sociologist, examined a dozen reading and math tests dating back 25 years and found that the gap in scores of high- and low-income students has grown by 40 percent, even as the difference between blacks and whites has narrowed.
收入总是和学业成就挂钩的，但是这一因素的影响正在扩大。斯坦福大学的社会学家里尔顿研究了过去25年来的阅读和数学考试成绩，发现高收入和低收入学生之间的差距增加了40%，而黑人和白人之间的差距已经缩小。
While race once predicted scores more than class, the opposite now holds. By eighth grade, white students surpass blacks by an average of three grade levels, while upper-income students are four grades ahead of low-income counterparts.
以往，种族对于成绩的影响比阶级的影响更大，现在的情况却正相反。以八年级为例，白人学生比黑人学生的成绩平均高三个等级，但高收入学生比低收入学生的成绩水平要高四个等级。
“The racial gaps are quite big, but the income gaps are bigger,” Professor Reardon said.
“种族差距很大，但是收入差距更大，”里尔顿教授说道。
One explanation is simply that the rich have clearly gotten richer. A generation ago, families at the 90th percentile had five times the income of those at the 10th percentile. Now they have 10 times as much.
有一种解释，简单来讲就是富人显然变得更加富有了。在上一代，排名在第90百分位的家庭收入是在第10百分位的家庭收入的五倍，现在已经达到十倍之多了。
But as shop class gave way to computer labs, schools may have also changed in ways that make parental income and education more important. SAT coaches were once rare, even for families that could afford them. Now they are part of a vast college preparation industry.
但是，随着计算机实验室取代了“手艺课”（指技术培训课程），学校也发生了变革，父母的收入和教育变得更加重要。以前SAT的辅导老师很少，即使出得起钱的家庭也很难请到老师。而现在他们成为了这种巨大的“学前辅导产业”的一部分。
Certainly as the payoff to education has grown — college graduates have greatly widened their earnings lead — affluent families have invested more in it. They have tripled the amount by which they outspend low-income families on enrichment activities like sports, music lessons and summer camps, [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] Professor Duncan and Prof. Richard Murnane of Harvard.
当然，教育的回报也增加了——大学毕业生的收入大大增加——富裕家庭在教育上投入的更多。哈佛大学的教授邓肯和理查德·莫尼恩(Richard Murnane)[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]，他们投入的资金是低收入家庭的三倍，主要用在了课外活动上，比如运动、音乐课程和夏令营。
In addition, upper-income parents, especially fathers, have increased their child-rearing time, while the presence of fathers in low-income homes has declined. Miss G. said there is a reason the triplets relied so heavily on boyfriends: “Their fathers weren’t there.”
除此之外，高收入父母，尤其是父亲，在养育子女方面投入了更多时间，而低收入家庭中的父亲在家的时间更少了。G老师表示，“三胞胎”过于依赖她们的男友的一个原因是：“她们的父亲都不在身边。”
Annette Lareau, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that the affluent also enjoy an advocacy edge: parents are quicker to intervene when their children need help, while low-income families often feel intimidated and defer to school officials, a problem that would trail Melissa and Angelica in their journey through college.
宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)的社会学家安妮特·拉鲁(Annette Lareau)认为，富裕家庭在获得支持方面也存在优势：在子女需要帮助的时候，父母能更快介入，而低收入家庭通常会惧怕和听命于学校领导。这个问题贯穿于玛丽莎和安吉莉卡的整个大学旅程。
“Middle-class students get the sense the institution will respond to them,” Professor Lareau said. “Working-class and poor students don’t experience that. It makes them more vulnerable.”
“中产阶级的学生感觉学校应该会回应他们的需求，”拉鲁教授说道，“而工人阶级以及贫困学生没有经历过这些。这让他们更加脆弱。”
Matthew M. Chingos of the Brookings Institution [要查看本链接请先注册并登录] that low-income students finish college less often than affluent peers even when they outscore them on skills tests. Only 26 percent of eighth graders with below-average incomes but above-average scores go on to earn bachelor’s degrees, compared with 30 percent of students with subpar performances but more money.
布鲁斯金学会(Brookings Institution)的马修·M·秦格斯(Matthew M. Chingos)[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]，即使低收入学生的技能测试成绩高于富裕学生，他们中能完成学业的人数也还是要少。在成绩高于平均分、但收入低于平均水平的八年级生中，只有26%的人能够获得本科学位；而在成绩低于平均分、但更富裕的学生中，能拿到学位的人占30%。
“These are students who have already overcome significant obstacles to score above average on this test,” Mr. Chingos said. “To see how few earn college degrees is really disturbing.”
“这些学生为了考到平均分以上，已经克服了巨大的障碍，”秦格斯先生说，“但拿到大学学位的人如此之少，真令人不安。”
Triplets Start College
“三胞胎”开始了大学生活
Melissa lasted at Texas State for all of two hours. As soon as she arrived, her car battery died, prompting a tearful call to Miss. G., who arranged a jump. Her dorm mates had parents to haul boxes and hover. Melissa unpacked alone. With four days left until classes began, she panicked and drove 200 miles back home.
玛丽莎在德克萨斯州又耽搁了两个小时。当她到学校的时候，汽车的电瓶没电了。她含泪给G老师打电话，G老师教她做了跨接启动。室友们都有父母帮忙拉箱子、陪伴在侧，而玛丽莎只能自己整理行李。距离开课还有四天时，她惊慌失措，开了200英里的车回到家。
For all the talk of getting away, her tattoo featured a local boast: she was “B.O.I.” — born on the island. Her grandparents ordered her back to school. “I really didn’t want to leave” the island, she said.
对于大家都在谈论的“离开”，她的纹身表现出对家乡的自豪之情：她是“小岛出生的”（born on the island，简称BOI）。她的外祖父母命令她回到学校。“我真的不想离开”这个岛，玛丽莎说道。
Midway through the semester she decided she had made a mistake by going to Texas State. She had picked the wrong time to leave home. She would move back to Galveston, join Bianca at community college and transfer to a four-year school later. But when she tried to return the financial aid to Texas State, she discovered it was too late. A long walk across the hilly campus led to an epiphany.
学期过半，她觉得她去德州州立大学的决定是错误的。她在错误的时候离开了家。她想搬回加尔维斯顿，和比安卡一起读社区大学，然后再转到四年制的学校。然而当她试图归还德州大学的经济援助时，她发现已经太迟了。在满是丘陵的校园里散步了很久，她最终想通了。
“I realized there was nothing in Galveston for me,” she said. “This is where I need to be.”
“我意识到加尔维斯顿没有什么可以给我的，”她说，“这里才是我该呆的地方。”
Angelica had a costlier setback. For an elite school, Emory enrolls an unusually large number of low-income students — 22 percent get Pell grants, compared with 11 percent at Harvard — and gives them unusually large aid packages. But Angelica had failed to complete all the financial aid forms.
安吉莉卡要付出昂贵的代价。作为一所精英学校，埃默里大学招收的低收入学生的比例非常高——他们当中有22%的人可获得佩尔奖学金(Pell grants)——相比之下哈佛大学只有11%的贫困生能得到这个奖学金——而且埃默里本身也提供相当丰厚的助学金。但是安吉莉卡没有填完申请经济援助的所需表格。
Slow to consider Emory, she got a late start on the complex process and was delayed by questions about her father, whom she did not even know how to reach. Though Emory sent weekly e-mails — 17 of them, along with an invitation to a program for minority students — they went to a school account she had not learned to check. From the start, the wires were crossed.
她到很晚才开始考虑埃默里，申请程序复杂，而且她在填写关于她父亲的问题时耽误了一阵，她甚至都不知道怎么联系上他。尽管埃默里每周发送邮件和少数族裔学生课程邀请，但这些邮件都发送到了学校的账户里，安吉莉卡还没学会怎么收邮件——总共有17个学生遇到了这个问题。事情从一开始就把她搞得稀里糊涂。
As classes approached, she just got in the car with Mrs. Lady and Fred and drove 14 hours to Atlanta hoping to work things out. But by then Emory had distributed all of its aid. Even with federal loans and grants, Angelica was $40,000 short. The only way to enroll was to borrow from a bank.
临近开学，安吉莉卡跳上了车子，和“夫人太太”与弗莱德一起开了14个小时的车去了亚特兰大，想把问题解决掉。但是那时埃默里已经发放完了所有的助学金。即使有联邦贷款和补贴，她还有4万美元的缺口。要想读书，唯一的办法就是从银行借款了。
Forty thousand dollars was an unfathomable sum. Angelica did not tell Mrs. Lady, to protect her from the worry. She needed a co-signer, and the only person she could ask was Fred. That would bind her future to her past, but she feared that if she tried to defer, she might not have a future — she might never make it back.
4万美元是一个天文数字。安吉莉卡没有告诉“夫人太太”，因为不想让她担心。她需要一位担保人，而她唯一可以找的人就是弗雷德了。这将把她的未来和过去都绑在一起，但是她害怕如果拖延下去，她也许就没有未来了——她也许永远都无法弥补了。
“I was like, ‘I don’t care what kind of debt it puts me in — I’ve got to get this done,”‘ she said.
“我当时就想，‘我不在乎这对我来说意味着什么——我只想借到这笔钱’，”她说。
Fred answered her request with his. They got engaged.
弗雷德答应了她的请求。他们订婚了。
A few weeks later, [要查看本链接请先注册并登录], with Katrina-like consequences. About a sixth of the population never returned. Mrs. Lady lost her apartment and much of what she owned. Fred, consumed with rebuilding the store, reduced the modest sums he had promised to send Angelica.
几周之后，[要查看本链接请先注册并登录]，后果像卡特琳娜飓风一样可怕，有六分之一的人遇难或失踪。“夫人太太”失去了她的公寓和大部分财产。弗雷德因为要花钱重建商店，只好减少之前承诺寄给安吉莉卡的原本就为数不多的钱。
Social life was awkward. She often felt she was the only one on campus without a credit card. Her roommate moved out, with no explanation. But one element of college appealed to Angelica and Melissa alike: the classes. Other debt-ridden students might wonder why the road to middle-class life passed through anthropology exams and lectures on art history. But Melissa was happy to ponder tribal life in Papua New Guinea and Angelica stepped off the 18-hour bus ride home and let slip an appreciative word about German film.
社交生活是尴尬的。安吉莉卡经常觉得自己是学校里唯一一个没有信用卡的人。她的室友搬出去了，没做任何解释。但是大学有一点吸引着安吉莉卡和玛丽莎：那就是课堂。其他债务缠身的学生们也许会好奇，为什么人类学测验和艺术史讲座是走向中产的必经之路。但是玛丽莎很乐于思考巴布亚新几内亚的部落生活；而安吉莉卡会坐18个小时的大巴回家，滔滔不绝地称赞着德国电影。
“My family said ‘O.K., now you go to some big fancy school,’ ” she said.
“我的家人说‘好吧，现在你上的是贵族学校，’”她说。
With A’s, B’s, C’s and D’s, her report card looked like alphabet soup. “I was ready for Galveston College — I wasn’t ready for Emory,” Angelica said. But she salvaged a 2.6 GPA and went home for the summer happy.
A、B、C、D，她的成绩单看起来像一碗字母形面片汤。“我为上加尔维斯顿学院做了准备，但还没有准备好去埃默里，”安吉莉卡说。但她最后把平均绩点补救到了2.6，暑期时高兴地回家了。
“I thought the hard part was over,” she said.
“我觉得最困难的部分过去了，”她说。
At the end of the summer, Angelica and Melissa marked their ascent as college women with the perfect road trip. Melissa had decided to become a speech therapist. Angelica would practice child psychology. Somewhere between the rainbow in Louisiana and the blues bar in Orlando, they talked of launching a practice to help poor children. Fortune smiled all week.
在暑期结束时，安吉莉卡和玛丽莎的一次完美的公路旅行标志着她们作为女大学生的成长。玛丽莎决定成为一名语言治疗师。安吉莉卡想进行儿童心理学的实践。在路易斯安那的彩虹下、在奥兰多的蓝调酒吧，她们谈论了关于成立一个帮助贫困儿童的机构的计划。整个一周，命运之神向她们微笑。
“We were where we should be and we had the world at our feet,” Melissa said.
“我们在我们应该在的地方，世界就在我们脚下。”玛丽莎说。
Melissa
玛丽莎
She returned to a campus that was starting to feel like home. She had a roommate she liked and a job she loved, as a clerk in a Disney store. But despite the feeling of deep change — or perhaps because of it — she got back together with her high-school boyfriend. “That was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done,” she said.
玛丽莎回到了一个让她感觉像家一样的校园。她有了一个喜欢的室友，和一份她喜欢的工作——在迪斯尼商店做店员。但是，虽然她感觉到自己发生了很大的变化——或者说也许正是因为这样——她和高中时代的男朋友复合了。“这是我做过的最蠢的事情之一，”她说。
In the middle of Melissa’s sophomore year they became engaged. He moved near the campus to live with her, and Melissa charged most of their expenses on her credit cards. He was enrolling in the Job Corps program, and they agreed they would pay down the bills together after he became an electrician.
在玛丽莎大二的时候，他们订婚了。他搬到了她学校附近和她同居，玛丽莎用信用卡支付他们大部分的生活费。他报读了一个就业训练团(Job Corps)的课程，他们说好等他成为一名电工之后，他们会一起还账单。
Melissa hit an academic pothole — a C in a communications course, which kept her out of the competitive speech therapy program. But she decided to aim for graduate-school training, and her other grades soared, placing her on the dean’s list both semesters her junior year. When her mother made a rare campus visit, Melissa hurried to show her the prominent display on the student center wall.
玛丽莎的成绩出了问题——她在传播学的课上得了一个C，导致她无缘升读竞争激烈的语言障碍矫正课程。但是她决定以研究生院培训为目标，她的其他成绩飙升，在大三的两个学期都被列入了学院优秀学生名单。在她母亲为数不多的一次探望中，玛丽莎迫不及待地给她看自己被展示在学生中心墙上的荣誉。
“That was one of the proudest moments of my life,” Melissa said.
“这是我生命中最自豪的时刻之一，”玛丽莎说。
Just before her senior year, Melissa planned a trip to celebrate her 21st birthday. Preparing to leave, she discovered her money was missing. Only one person had her bank code. After finishing Job Corps, her boyfriend was jobless once again and acting odd — as if he were using drugs.
在升大四之前，玛丽莎计划了一次旅行来庆祝自己的21岁生日。就在出发前，她发现自己的钱不见了。只有一个人知道她的银行密码。在结束就业训练团的课程之后，她的男朋友又一次失业了，而且行为古怪——好像是在吸毒。
No one but Melissa was surprised. Although she returned the engagement ring, she could not return the $4,000 in credit card debt he had promised to help pay. With her finances and emotions in disarray, she started her senior year so depressed she hung up black curtains so she could sleep all day. She skipped class, doubled her work hours, and failed nearly every course.
除了玛丽莎之外，没有人觉得惊讶。虽然她把订婚戒指退还了，但她还不起他之前承诺帮忙偿还的4000美元信用卡欠账。经济和感情问题混乱不堪，她在极度抑郁中开始了大四。她在房间挂起了黑色窗帘，这样她就可以睡一整天。她逃课、用多一倍的时间去打工，几乎所有课程都不及格。
“I started partying, and I was working all the time because I had this debt,” she said.
“我开始参加派对，因为要还债，我无时无刻不在工作，”她说。
If the speed of her decline stands out, so does her lack of a safety net. It is easy to imagine a more affluent family stepping in with money or other support. Miss G. sent her the names of some campus therapists but Melissa did not call. She waited for an internal bungee cord to break the fall. She came within one F of losing her financial aid, then aced last summer’s classes.
她下滑的速度惊人，心里的安全网也迅速消失。很容易想象这时如果有一个更富裕的家庭介入，提供金钱或其他支持，她会得到怎样的帮助。G老师给了她一些校园治疗师的名字，但是玛丽莎没有联系他们。她等待着出现一根弹力绳，让她停止下落。她的一次不及格让她失去了经济支援，之后她又在去年夏季的课程中名列前茅。
She is now a fifth-year senior, on track to graduate next summer, and her new boyfriend is studying to be an engineer. At home, she had a way of finding the wrong people. “I haven’t found any wrong people out here,” she said.
她现在正重读大四，按计划明年夏季毕业，她的新男友也在读，打算成为一名工程师。在家时，她有一套辨别错误的人的方法。“在这里我没发现什么错误的人，”她说。
With more than $44,000 in loans, she can expect to pay $250 a month for the next quarter century, on top of whatever she may borrow for graduate school. She hides the notices in a drawer and harbors no regrets. “Education — you can’t put a price on it,” she said. “No matter what happens in your life, they can’t take your education away.”
背着4.4万美元的贷款，她要在接下来的25年每个月支付250美元，她借这笔钱是为了读研究生。她把贷款通知藏在抽屉里，心中不曾有任何怨尤。“你无法给教育定价，”她说，“无论在你的生命中遇到什么，你受的教育都不会被夺走。”
Bianca
比安卡
Bianca missed the Florida road trip, though no one remembers why. She liked to talk of getting away, until it came time to go.
比安卡没有去佛罗里达的公路旅行，不过大家都不记得原因了。她喜欢谈论关于“离开”的话题，但真到行动时就没影了。
Among the perils that low-income students face is “under-matching,” choosing a close or familiar school instead of the best they can attend.
低收入学生要面对的一个风险是“低匹配”，他们选了距离近的或熟悉的学校，而不是选他们能上的最好的学校。
“The more selective the institution is, the more likely kids are to graduate,” said Mr. Chingos, the Brookings researcher. “There are higher expectations, more resources and more stigma to dropping out.”
“学校的选择性越强，孩子们毕业的可能性就越大，”布鲁金斯研究员秦格斯表示，“因为期望更高、资源更丰富，退学要承受的污点也更大。”
Bianca was under-matched. She was living at home, dating her high-school boyfriend and taking classes at Galveston College. A semester on the honor roll only kept her from sensing the drift away from her plan to transfer to a four-year school.
比安卡就被“低匹配”了。她住在家里，和高中时的男友约会，在加尔维斯顿学院上课。上了一学期的优等生名单让她加强了想转入四年制学校的念头。
Her grandfather’s cancer, and chemotherapy treatments, offered more reasons to stay. She had lived with him since her father had died. Leaving felt like betrayal. “I thought it was more important to be at home than to be selfish and be at school,” she said.
她祖父患了癌症，要接受化疗，这让她有了更多留下的理由。自从她父亲去世，她就和祖父住在一起。离开就像是背叛。“我觉得比起自私地去读书，留在家里更加重要，”她说。
The idea that education can be “selfish” — a belief largely alien among the upper-middle class — is one poor students often confront, even if it remains unspoken. “Family is such a priority, especially when you’re a Hispanic female,” Miss G. said. “You’re afraid you’re going to hear, ‘You’re leaving us, you think you’re better.’ ”
关于教育是“自私的”——对于中上层阶级来讲不可思议的观点——却是贫困学生经常要面对的问题，尽管是不言而喻的。“家庭是优先的，尤其是对于西班牙裔女性来说，”G老师说道，“她们害怕听到‘你觉得自己翅膀硬了就要离开我们了’这种话。”
In her second year of community college, Bianca was admitted to a state university a hundred miles away. Miss. G. and her mother urged her to go. Her mind raced with reasons to wait.
在社区大学的第二年，比安卡被一所100英里外的州立大学录取了。G老师和她的母亲鼓励她去，但她一直在给自己找留下的借口。
“I didn’t want to leave and have my grandfather die.”
“我不想离开，不想祖父去世。”
“I had to help my mom.”
“我必须要帮我妈妈。”
“I think I got burned out.”
“我觉得我读书读累了。”
Bianca stayed in Galveston, finished her associate degree, and now works as a beach-bar cashier and a spa receptionist. She still plans to get a bachelor’s degree, someday.
比安卡留在了加尔维斯顿，完成了她的副学士学位，现在在一家海滩酒吧做出纳，还在一家水疗中心做接待员。她仍然计划着有朝一日要拿到一个学士学位。
“I don’t think I was lazy. I think I was scared,” she said. In the meantime, “life happened.”
“我觉得我并不懒惰。我只是很害怕，”她说道，同时又补充了一句，“世事难料。”
Angelica
安吉莉卡
After the financial aid disaster in her first year, Angelica met the next deadline and returned as a sophomore with significant support. Still, she sensed she was on shakier ground than other low-income students and never understood why. The answer is buried in the aid archives: Emory repeatedly inflated her family’s income without telling her.
在第一年的经济援助灾难之后，安吉莉卡遇到了下一个截止期限，她得到了足够的支持，回去开始读大二。不过她仍然感觉到自己比起其他低收入学生的情况更加不稳定，但她从来都不知道为什么。答案就隐藏在援助档案里：埃默里大学在她不知情的情况下不断地夸大她的家庭收入。
Angelica reported that her mother made $35,000 a year and paid about half of that in rent. With her housing costs so high, Emory assumed the family had extra money and assigned Mrs. Lady an income of $51,000. But Mrs. Lady was not hiding money. She was paying inflated post-hurricane rent with the help of Federal disaster aid, a detail Angelica had inadvertently omitted.
安吉莉卡报告说她母亲的年收入是3.5万美元，房租支出就占了一半。由于住房成本太高，埃默里大学就假定这个家庭还有额外收入，并把“夫人太太”的年收入定为5.1万美元。但是“夫人太太”并没有把钱藏起来。她是靠联邦灾害救助(Federal disaster aid)的支援支付飓风后上涨的租金的，而安吉莉卡在无意中忽略了这个细节。
By counting money the family did not have, Emory not only increased the amount it expected Angelica to pay in addition to her financial aid. It also disqualified her from most of the school’s touted program of debt relief. Under the Emory Advantage plan the school replaces loans with grants for families *** less than $50,000 a year. Moving Angelica just over the threshold placed her in a less-generous tier and forced her to borrow an additional $15,000 before she could qualify. The mistake will add years to her repayment plan.
埃默里多算了这个家庭的年收入，这样不仅增加了安吉莉卡在经济援助以外要交的钱，而且她也不再具备申请学校大部分减免债务计划的资格。根据“埃默里优势计划”(Emory Advantage plan)，学校为年收入在5万美元以下的家庭提供补助金，而不是贷款。安吉莉卡的家庭年收入被移到了这个临界值之上，这让她处在一个“需要较少援助”的级别，她要被迫额外贷款1.5万美元才能有资格。这个错误增加了她还款计划的年限。
She discovered what had happened only recently, after allowing a reporter to review her file with Emory officials. “There was no other income coming in,” she said. “I can’t believe that they would do that and not say anything to us. That seems completely unfair.”
直到最近，记者经她允许和埃默里校方核查她的文件时，她才发现这个问题。“我们家没有其他收入了，”她说道，“我不敢相信他们什么都没和我们说就这么做。这太不公平了。”
Emory officials said they had to rely on the information Angelica provided and that they will not make retroactive adjustments.
埃默里校方表示，他们是依据安吉莉卡提供的信息来处理的，他们不会再做追溯性调整。
“The method that was used in her case was very standard methodology,” said J. Lynn Zimmerman, the senior vice provost who oversees financial aid. “I think that what’s unusual is that she really didn’t advocate for herself or ask for any kind of review. If she or her mother would have provided any additional information it would have triggered a conversation.”
“我们采用了非常标准的方法处理她的案例，”负责海外经济援助的高级副教务长J·林恩·齐默尔曼(J. Lynn Zimmerman)表示，“我认为不寻常的地方在于，她的确没有为自己做辩护，或者要求任何形式的核查。如果她或她的母亲提供了任何额外资料，都会引起我们的关注的。”
Unaware she had any basis for complaint, Angelica found a campus job she loved, repairing library books. It was solitary and artistic work, and it attracted a small sisterhood of women who appreciated her grandmother’s tamales and her streak of purple hair. One day her boss, Julie Newton, overheard her excitedly talking about Hegel.
没有任何投诉的依据，无奈之下安吉莉卡找到了一份她喜欢的校园工作——修补图书馆的书籍。这是一份需要独自完成的、有艺术性的工作，还吸引了一批喜欢她外婆做的玉米粉蒸肉和她那一缕紫色头发的姐妹们。一天，她的老板朱莉·牛顿(Julie Newton)听到她正在兴奋地谈论着黑格尔(Hegel)。
“She was an extremely intelligent woman and an unusual one,” she said.
“她是一位非常聪慧的、不寻常的女性，”她说。
Yet even as Angelica’s work hours grew, so did the rigor of her coursework. Meetings with faculty advisers were optional and Angelica did not consult hers. When it came time to declare a major, she had a B-plus average in the humanities and D’s in psychology. She chose psychology.
然而，随着安吉莉卡的工作时间增加，她的功课也越来越难。和指导教授见面不是强制的，而安吉莉卡也没有和她的教授谈话。到了选择专业的时候，她的人文学科的平均成绩是B+，而心理学是D。她选择了心理学。
By the end of her second year, she felt exhausted and had grades to show it. Her long-distance love life was exhausted, too, and she briefly broke up with Fred. She went home for the summer to work at Target and dragged herself back to a troubled junior year.
到第二年结束时，她感到筋疲力尽，而且体现在了成绩上。她的异地恋生活也很辛苦，于是和弗莱德短暂分手。暑假她回到家，在塔吉特(Target)工作，然后身心疲惫地回到学校开始了艰难的大三生活。
She moved off campus to save money but found herself spending even more. “I would sit and debate whether I could buy a head of lettuce,” she said. Fred was no longer helping, and her relationship with him snapped. That he had backed a $40,000 loan only made the split harder. They had been together since she was 15.
为了省钱她搬出了学校，却发现花费更多了。“我会坐下来，盘算着我能否买得起一棵生菜，”她说道。弗莱德不再给她帮助，她和他的关系也戛然而止了。但他担保了那笔4万美元的贷款给分手增加了困难。他们从安吉莉卡15岁时就在一起了。
“It was days of back and forth, crying,” she said.
“那段时间反反复复，以泪洗面，”她说。
This was no time to tackle Psychology 200, a course on research methods required of majors. The devotion of the professor, Nancy Bliwise, had earned her a campus teaching award. But her exacting standards and brusque manner left student opinion divided.
不适合在这个时间来处理“心理学200”课程——心理学专业必修的研究方法课。教授南希·布里怀兹(Nancy Bliwise)的***精神使她赢得了学校的教学奖，但是她严厉的标准和粗鲁的举止也使学生对她的看法有分歧。
“Quite possibly the greatest professor at Emory,” wrote one contributor to the Web site Rate My Professor. Others found her “condescending,” “horribly disrespectful,” and “plain out mean.”
“很可能是埃默里大学最棒的教授，”“评价我的教授”(Rate My Professor)网站上有一位网友这样写道。也有其他人写道“谦逊的”、“极其无礼的”，以及“极端刻薄”。
Midway through the semester, Angelica just stopped coming to class. Professor Bliwise called her in and found her despondent. “She was emotionless and that scared me,” the professor said in an interview. Angelica said she had to work too much to keep up, but could not drop the course without losing her full-time status and her aid. So she planned to take an “F.”
学期中途，安吉莉卡不再来上课了。布里怀兹教授把她叫来见面，发现她意志消沉。“她看上去冷冰冰的，这让我感到害怕，”教授在一次采访中说道。安吉莉卡说她恐怕跟不上进度了，但是如果退选这门课就会让她失去全日制的身份以及她的资助。所以她准备好要拿一个“F”（不及格）。
Alarmed, Professor Bliwise raised other options, then asked — empathetically, the professor thought — if Angelica had considered cheaper schools. She herself had worked her way through Cleveland State then earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago.
忧虑的布里怀兹教授想到了其他选项——然后她同情地问，安吉莉卡是否考虑过更便宜的学校。她自己就是从克利夫兰州立大学(Cleveland State)一路走到芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)拿到了博士学位。
Angelica sat stone-faced, burning. All she could hear was someone saying she was too poor for Emory. “It was pretty clear if I couldn’t afford to be there, I shouldn’t waste her time,” she said.
安吉莉卡面无表情地坐着，脸上发了烧。她听到的全是别人说她读不起埃默里。“她的意思很明确，如果我读不起那里，我就不应该浪费她的时间，”她说。
That was the beginning of the end. Angelica failed that course and three others her junior year, as her upside-down circumstances left her cheating a $200,000 education for a $9-an-hour job. She was not one to make it easy, but Emory never found a way to intervene. “Is there a way to reach out to her?” Professor Bliwise asked in an e-mail to the dean’s office.
这是她悲惨结局的开始。大三这一年，除了那门课之外，安吉莉卡还有三门课得了不及格，她本末倒置的状况让她为了9美元一小时的工作而怠慢了20万美元的教育。她不会处理这种问题，但是埃默里也从来没有找到一个干预的方法。“有什么办法能帮到她吗？”布里怀兹教授在写给教育处的邮件里问道。
The dean’s office left messages. Angelica acknowledged that she was slow to respond but said she got no answer when she did. The school did an electronic key card check to verify whether she was still on campus. More professors expressed concerns. “Personal issues are interfering with her ability to concentrate,” one warned. Angelica contacted campus counseling but said all the appointments had been taken.
教务处留了言。安吉莉卡承认她的回应有些迟，但她在回应时也没有得到任何答案。学校做了一次电子钥匙检查来核实她是否还在校园里。更多教授表达了他们的关注。“个人事务正在干扰她，使她无法集中精神，”其中一个教授发出这样的警告。安吉莉卡联系了校园心理辅导，但是被告知所有的档期都约满了。
Emory can hardly be cast as indifferent to low-income students. It spends $94 million a year of its own money on financial aid and graduates its poorest students nearly as often as the rest. Its failure to reach Angelica may have come up short, but that is partly a measure of the sheer distance it was trying to bridge.
也不能说埃默里对低收入学生漠不关心。埃默里每年自费9400万美元用于经济援助，最贫困的学生和其他学生的毕业率也不相上下。对安吉莉卡的援助也许不力，但这也正是他们正努力完善的缺陷之一。
When Angelica finally found a way to express herself, she did so silently. Her final piece for a sculpture class was a papier-mâché baby, sprouting needles like a porcupine. No one could mistake the statement of her own vulnerability.
安吉莉卡最终找到了一个表达自我的途径，只不过是沉默地表达。她在雕塑课上做的最后一件作品是一个用纸浆做的婴儿，婴儿的身上插满了像豪猪那样的针刺。大家都能看出这是她在表达自己的脆弱。
“It was a shocking piece,” said her professor, Linda Armstrong. “She had a way of using art to tap into her deepest emotions and feelings. I don’t think she understood how good she was.”
“这是一件令人震惊的作品，”她的教授琳达·阿姆斯特朗(Linda Armstrong)说，“她用艺术表达了她内心最深处的情绪和感受。我觉得她不知道自己有多棒。”
Angelica spent the next summer waiting for an expulsion letter that never came. Another missed deadline cost her several thousand dollars in aid in her senior year, and Emory mistakenly concluded that Mrs. Lady had made a $70,000 down payment on a house. (In describing the complicated transaction with a nonprofit group, Angelica failed to note that most of the money came from a program for first-time home buyers.) Emory officials said the mistake did not affect her aid, but the difference between the school’s costs and her package of loans and grants swelled to $12,000 — a sum she could not possibly meet.
安吉莉卡等了整个夏天，都没有等到那封开除信。又一次错过了最后期限，导致她花费了数千美元来支持大四的学习，而埃默里错误地做出结论，相信“夫人太太”花了7万美元用于一栋房子的首付。（在描述和一个非营利团体的复杂交易时，安吉莉卡没有指出大部分资金来自一个针对首次购房人士的优惠计划。）埃默里校方表示，这一错误并未影响她的助学金，但是学校的花费和她能得到的贷款及助学金之间的差距拉大到了1.2万美元，而她不可能筹到这笔钱。
She skipped more classes and worked longer hours.
她旷课的次数更多了，工作的时间更长了。
“I felt, I’m going to be on academic probation anyway, I might as well work and pay my rent until they suspend me.”
“我觉得无论如何我都会被留校察看，我还不如先工作、付我的房租，直到他们不让我读了。”
Finally, Emory did — forcing her to take a semester away with the option of reapplying.
最终，埃默里的确这么做了——她被强制停课一个学期，但保留了重新申请入学的权利。
The tale could be cast as an elite school failing a needy student or a student unwilling to be helped, but neither explanation does justice to an issue as complicated as higher education and class.
这个故事有两种解读，一是“一所精英学校让一名贫困学生退学”；二是“一名学生不愿接收帮助”，但是对于高等教育和阶级这种复杂的问题，这两种解释都有失公平。
“It’s a little of both,” said Joanne Brzinski, a dean who oversees academic advising. “We reached out to her, but she didn’t respond. I always fault myself when students don’t do as well as we’d like them to.”
“两种说法都有些道理，”负责学业辅导的院长乔安·布热津斯基(Joanne Brzinski)表示，“我们联系了她，但是她没有回应。每当学生没有做那些我们要他们做的事情时，我总是责怪自己。”
“It’s such a sad story,” she added. “She had the ability.”
“这是一个悲伤的故事，”她补充道，“她本来有这个能力的。”
Ms. Newton, Angelica’s former supervisor at the library, wondered if her conflict went beyond money, to a fear of the very success she sought. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say she was committing self-sabotage, but the thought crossed my mind,” she said. “For someone so connected to family and Grandma and the tamales, I wondered if she feared that graduating would alienate her.”
安吉莉卡在图书馆工作时的导师牛顿女士认为安吉莉卡的内心冲突超越了金钱的层面，而是对于她所追