(单词翻译:单击)
听力文本
Growing Global Student Debt Fuels Search for Solutions
Student loan debt is a worldwide problem. In the United States, the country's overall student debt reached a record $1.6 trillion this year. The average person with student loan debt in the U.S. owes between $20,000 and nearly $25,000.
In Japan, the group that oversees the government's student loan system recently reported it has been lending over $9 billion to students every year since 2010.
Similar conditions exist in Africa and South America, says former United Nations Population Division director Joseph Chamie. He suggests several reasons for high student loan debt. One is that employers everywhere have increased their demands for skilled workers, making higher education a requirement for many jobs. This means more students are seeking higher education worldwide than ever before.
At the same time, governments are investing less money in public colleges and universities. They are refusing to raise taxes, and use existing tax money to meet other needs, Chamie says. So, more students are attending private institutions, which are often more costly.
However, students often find that once they complete their education, their country's economy is not strong enough to support their financial needs. For example, about 28 percent of four-year degree holders in Malaysia had no job in 2015.
"A lot of them, when they're finishing, are either unemployed or underemployed, so their ability to pay back the loan becomes a problem," Chamie told VOA.
Even in countries like Sweden, where attending university is free, about 70 percent of students still borrow an average of about $20,000 total. That is because students still face other living costs, like food and housing.
As student debt has become a global problem, countries are seeking ways to solve it. Australia, for example, has established a system where students do not have to pay anything back until they are earning at least $40,000 a year.
In the U.S., several candidates running for president in the 2020 election have offered more extreme solutions. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren suggest it is in the nation's best interest to forgive all or at least some of these loans.
Some researchers recently asked what the effects of debt forgiveness might be. Ankit Kalda is an assistant professor of finance at Indiana University. In September, he and researchers from Harvard University and Georgia State University published a study on debt relief.
Their study came out of an unusual situation. In 2017, U.S. courts found that a large financial organization had made mistakes in its record keeping. The company could not show that it owned the debt of 2,000 borrowers. Therefore they had to remove it. And so suddenly, a number of people were told they did not need to pay back the money they had borrowed.
Kalda and his team looked at what happened to some of these people. The researchers found that, overall, sudden debt relief greatly improved the borrowers' lives. For example, not only did they have more money – they were more likely to move to a new area and seek better paying work. In time, they began earning more money, on average about $3,000 more a year.
In addition, they no longer had negative information about late or missed debt payments on their credit report. A negative credit history can harm a person's ability to find a well-paying job in the United States.
Charlotte Hancock argues these findings are evidence enough that some kind of debt relief plan must move forward. Hancock is the communications director for Generation Progress, the youth centered research and activism part of the Center for American Progress.
Young people are just entering the time in their lives when they can be financially independent, start families and really add to the economy, she says. But their ability to do so is greatly limited if they have debt hanging over them.
"Even beyond some of the financial stresses here, the mental burden…just being thousands of dollars in student debt that you feel you'll never be able to repay is huge," said Hancock.
Generation Progress suggests several ways debt relief could happen. They suggest policy makers could require lenders to change their agreements to lower interest rates, for example. They also suggest either total or partial debt forgiveness.
Yet Ankit Kalda and his team do not actually support debt forgiveness. Their research does not include a look at what might happen to financial institutions or the overall economy if debt were totally forgiven. It only looks at how debt forgiveness would help the borrowers.
Kalda also warns of some other possible negative effects.
"If as a borrower I know that if I run into any trouble I would be saved because I'm going to get this debt relief, then I might actually become more inclined to be more reckless with my borrowing in the future," he said.
No matter what, he and Hancock agree that if countries do decide to approve some student debt relief, the neediest students should be helped first.
I'm Dorothy Gundy. And I'm Pete Musto.
重点解析
重点讲解：
1. at the same time 同时；与此同时；
It's impossible to get everybody together at the same time.
让所有人同时聚在一起是不可能的。
2. for example 举例；例如；
Great men have often risen from poverty--Lincoln and Edison, for example.
你什么也不必担心。
3. a number of 一些；大量；
The research begs a number of questions.
研究绕过了一些问题。
4. happen to 碰巧；发生于；
I happen to be an aficionado of the opera, and I love art museums.
碰巧我是个歌剧迷，而且我爱去艺术博物馆。
参考译文
不断增长的全球学生债务为寻求解决方案提供了动力
学生贷款债务是一个世界性的问题。今年，美国的学生总债务达到创纪录的1.6万亿美元。在美国，拥有助学贷款债务的人平均负债在2万到近2.5万美元之间。
在日本，负责监督政府学生贷款系统的组织最近报告说，自2010年以来，该组织每年向学生贷款超过90亿美元。
前联合国人口司司长约瑟夫·查米表示，非洲和南美洲也存在类似的情况。他提出了造成高助学贷款债务的几个原因。一是各地用人单位增加了对技术工人的需求，使得高等教育成为许多工作的要求。这意味着世界范围内寻求高等教育的学生比以往任何时候都多。
与此同时，政府在公立高校方面的投资也在减少。夏米表示，他们拒绝增加税收，并利用现有的税收资金来满足其他需求。因此，越来越多的学生在私立学校就读，而私立学校的学费往往更高。
然而，学生们常常发现，一旦他们完成学业，国家的经济就不足以支撑他们的经济需求。例如，2015年，马来西亚约28%的四年制学位持有者没有工作。
查米告诉美国之音：“他们中的很多人毕业后要么失业，要么不能找到相匹配的工作，因此他们偿还贷款的能力成为一个问题。”
即使在像瑞典这样的国家，上大学是免费的，70%左右的学生的平均借贷总额仍然约为两万美元。这是因为学生仍然面临着其他生活费用，如食物和住房。
由于学生债务已成为一个全球性问题，各国都在寻求解决问题的方法。例如，澳大利亚已经建立了一个制度，学生在年收入达到至少四万美元之前不必偿还任何费用。
在美国，一些参加2020年总统大选的候选人提出了更极端的解决方案。参议员伯尼·桑德斯和伊丽莎白·沃伦认为，免除所有或至少部分贷款符合美国的最大利益。
一些研究人员最近询问，免除债务可能产生什么影响。安基特·卡尔达是印第安纳大学金融学专业的助理教授。今年9月，他和哈佛大学和乔治亚州立大学的研究人员发表了一份关于债务减免的研究报告。
他们的研究结果出人意料。2017年，美国法院发现一家大型金融机构在记录保存方面存在错误。该公司无法证明它拥有两千名借款人的债务。因此，他们不得不把其移除。突然间，许多人被告知他们不需要偿还所借的钱款。
卡尔达和他的团队研究了其中一些人的经历。研究人员发现，总的来说，突然的债务减免大大改善了借款人的生活。例如，他们不仅有更多的钱，而且更有可能搬到一个新的地区，寻找报酬更高的工作。后来，他们开始挣更多的钱，平均每年多挣3000美元。
此外，他们的信用报告中不再有关于逾期或未偿还债务的负面信息。负面的信用记录会损害一个人在美国找到高薪工作的能力。
夏洛特·汉考克认为，这些发现足以证明，某种债务减免计划必须向前推进。汉考克是美国进步中心以青年为导向的研究和行动组，进行“世代进步”研究的传播主管。
她表示，年轻人正进入可以在经济上独立、成家立业、真正为经济添砖加瓦的时代。但他们如果债务缠身，这样做的能力就很有限了。
汉考克说：“除了一些经济压力、精神负担......仅仅是数千美元的学生债务，你就会觉得自己永远无法偿的款项是这样的巨大。”
世代进步组的研究表明，债务减免可能有几种方式。例如，他们建议政策制定者可以要求贷款方改变协议，降低利率。他们还建议全部或部分免除债务。
然而，安基特·卡尔达和他的团队实际上并不支持债务免除。他们的研究不包括如果完全免除债务，金融机构或整个经济可能会发生什么。它只着眼于债务免除将如何帮助借款人。
卡尔达还警告说，还有其他一些可能的负面影响。
他说：“如果作为一个借款人，我知道如果我遇到麻烦，我会得救。因为这项债务可以减免，我实际上可能会更倾向于在未来越发不计后果地借款。”
不管怎样，他和汉考克都同意，如果各国真的决定批准减免一些学生的债务，首先应该帮助最贫困的学生。
多萝西·甘迪和皮特·穆斯托报道。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
