考研阅读精选：债务缠身的年轻人
『高昂的大学学费以及居高不下的失业率，使得美国以及欧洲诸多国家的大学毕业生们变成了债务缠身的一代，由此可能引起的社会问题不容小觑。』The Indebted Ones
债务缠身的年轻人
Oct 29th, 2011 | From The Economist
http://images.koolearn.com/casupload/upload/fckeditorUpload/2011-11-15/image/730015697fcc4df3b59ed5b78bd85e63.jpg
STUDENT loans are based on a simple idea: that a graduate’s future flowof earnings will more than cover the costs of doing a degree. But withunemployment rates in parts of the rich world at post-war highs, thatmay no longer hold true for many people. The consequences will be feltby everybody.
All over the world student indebtedness iscausing problems—witness this month’s violent protests in Chile. InBritain, according to a recent parliamentary report, rising universityfees mean that student debt is likely to treble to £70 billion by 2015.But, partly because higher education there is so expensive, the scale ofthe problem is far greater in America. When the next official estimatesof outstanding student debt there are published, it is expected to beclose to $1 trillion, higher than credit-card borrowing.
Many of the anti-Wall Street protesters push the idea of blanket debtforgiveness as a solution. But that is the wrong answer. Highereducation is not a guarantee of employment, but it improves the oddsimmensely. Unemployment rates among university graduates stood at 4.4%on average across OECD countries in 2009. People who did not completesecondary school faced unemployment rates of 11.5%. Much of the debtthat students are taking on is provided or guaranteed by the government.Imposing write-offs on all taxpayers to benefit those with the best jobprospects is unfair; and ripping up contracts between borrowers andprivate lenders is usually a bad idea.
That said,student-loan systems in America and elsewhere are often badly designedfor an extended period of high unemployment. In contrast to the housingcrash, the risk from student debt is not of a sudden explosion in lossesbut of gradual financial suffocation. The pressure needs to be eased.
One option is to change the bankruptcy laws. In America, Britain andelsewhere, these treat student debt as a special case: unlike otherforms of debt, it cannot be wiped out. If student debt is not to shackleexisting graduates and put off future ones, the rules could be changedso that it is dischargeable in bankruptcy. Yet the reasoning behind thecurrent bankruptcy provisions is logical enough: education is an assetthat cannot be repossessed and that keeps on benefiting the individualthrough his or her lifetime. Some worry that graduates would rush todeclare bankruptcy, handing losses to taxpayers.
So a secondoption is preferable. Many countries, America included, have designedstudent debt primarily as a mortgage-like obligation: it is repaid to afixed schedule. Other places, like Britain and Australia, makestudent-loan repayments contingent on reaching an income threshold sothat the prospect of taking on debt is more palatable to people frompoorer backgrounds. That approach makes sense, especially when jobs arescarce. Barack Obama this week proposed to limit loan payments for somestruggling American graduates to 10% of discretionary income and forgiveoutstanding debt after 20 years. Income-based repayment ought to becomethe norm.
Both changes would lead to a repricing of studentdebt. That would be a bad thing for taxpayers, but a good thing overall.Just as borrowers need to understand the risks they are exposingthemselves to, voters need to understand the liabilities thatgovernments are taking on when they subsidise students. If suchinformation were made public, other useful data would follow—on theaverage financial returns to graduates of specific subjects, forexample. Those studying less lucrative subjects would have to pay more,or be subsidised more. It would be a controversial approach, but a moreeducated one.（594 words）
文章地址：http://www.economist.com/node/21534781
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