7.Investing your college fees gives a better return
7.把你的大学学费用来投资会有更好的回报
Americans have always known that it will cost them a lot of money to go to university. Grants are available but costs are not limited to tuition.
美国人都知道上大学需要花很多钱。虽然有补助金，但是需要花的钱并不只局限于学费。
Students also have to cover the cost of their accommodation, food, books, utilities etc. For 2012-13 these costs were over $22,000 a year for state university rising to over $40,000 for a private course.
学生还必须支付他们的住宿费、伙食费、书本费、水电费等。在2012至2013年间，这些费用一年就超过了22000美元，上州立学校的私人课程所需要的费用甚至超过了40000美元。
College costs have been rising, year on year, faster than inflation and look to continue to do so for some time to come.
大学所需费用一直在上升，同比增长速度比通货膨胀还要快，并且就目前形势费用的攀升还将继续持续一段时间。

Those costs are, quite simply eye watering. You will walk away from a basic state 4 year degree with nearly $90,000 debt and much, much more if you attended a private institution.
这些费用高得让人难以想象。仅是基本的四年学位学习你就将负债将近90000美元的，而如果你在一个私人机构求学还需要更多更多的钱。
The sobering fact is that college debt repayments are costing the under 30 over $43 billion a year in payments. Is it worth it?
每年大学债务偿还要花费了300亿到430亿，这样的现实发人深省。这样值得吗？
If you are studying a degree that is going to guarantee you a long term high earning job (see below) then yes it may well be.
如果你通过学习获得的学位能保证你在将来获得一个长期高薪酬的工作（见下文），那么可能上大学就是个不错的选择。
If, however, you are going to end up overqualified and under employed then it is not worth it.
然而，如果你获得的高资历却在工作中大材小用，那念大学就不值得了。
For many professions you would be better served to start from the ground up and work in your chosen field, earning instead of getting into debt over 4 years.
许多职业你从基层干起也许会有更好的报酬，同时还可以在你自己选择的领域工作，这四年你将会赚钱而不是负债。
Alternatively if you or your parents have the money for you to pay for college fees up front think about the return you can get on investing it.
或者若你或你的父母能支付起大学费用，请预先考虑你在学习上的投资能收货多少回报。
Just investing your $22,000 college fees every year, compounded at 5% for the 4 years you would have been in college mean you would have earned more than $126,000 over that time, not including the money and experience you gained from working in the real world.
仅仅是每年投资22000美元的大学学费，再加上大学四年间你能得到的5%利息，此时你的获利已超过了126000美元，还不包括你在现实生活中工作所挣到的钱和获得的经验。
Age 22 invest this 126,000 at 5% compound and even with no further additions you will have over $1million retirement fund when you are 65. Of course in that time you will have earned more in your day job.
22岁时投资这126000美元加上5%的利息，没有其他任何外来收入，你将会在你65岁退休时拥有一百多万美元。当然，到那个时候你已经在日常工作中挣得了更多钱。

6.College degrees rarely provide a decent level of education
6.大学教育很少能担得起文凭的份量
You have already seen, in this article, although more people are going to college than ever before and paying more money for the privilege the high numbers of people attending college make these degrees worth less in the real world than those of our parents.
阅读到这里你可能已经发现了，尽管越来越多的学生选择接受大学教育，花更多的钱来享受一些特权，但大学生数量之多让如今的大学文凭比起我们父母时代的文凭要掉价得多。
Not only do the degrees grant less competitive edge but they are lower in quality and require less academic rigor to complete. American degrees are, quite simply, suffering from grade inflation. Research has shown that less than 5% of the higher education institutions in the Unites States require their students to gain an understanding of economics.
大学文凭不仅缺少了竞争力，而且含金量也有所下降，毕业时要求的学术能力也没以前高了。美国的文凭因为高校扩招而变得很容易获得。调查发现，只有不到5%的美国高等教育机构要求学生了解最基本的经济学知识。
43% of American college students did not show any improvement in learning over 2 years in college and a shocking 36% of students showed no progress over their entire 4 year course, probably because 35% of students in American universities spend less than 5 hours a week studying.
43%的美国大学生经过了两年的大学生活学习上却没有一点进步。更有甚者，36%的学生直到毕业也没有进步！也许是因为35%的学生每周的学习时间不超过5个小时吧。

No wonder then that 70% of graduates surveyed in 2011 felt they should have used college to prepare for work more effectively.
2011年的统计显示，70%的大学毕业生都非常后悔没有好好利用大学时光来为将来找工作做准备。
If you do want to go to college make sure that you research your course thoroughly. Find out exactly what the requirements are, what you will lean and what the career destinations of previous graduates have been.
如果你确定要上大学，那就好好了解你要学习的课程：这些课程具体有哪些要求、侧重于哪些方面、之前的毕业生都有哪些职业方向等等。
A course in zombies or Lady Gaga might sound like a lot of fun but is it worth taking on a mountain of debt or wasting your parents' retirement income?
一门研究僵尸或是Lady Gaga的课也许是有趣一些，但是当你负债累累或是在浪费父母的退休金时上这种课有意义吗？
Go to college to learn real, solid information, if you want to learn about Klingon get a job and read a book in the evening. You will be better off in the long run.
在大学里要学一些真正有用的知识，如果你想学克林贡语，可以在找到工作后晚上读读书。从长远的角度来说这对你是有帮助的。

5.College is a good place to have fun and do very little (except get into debt)
5.大学是个玩物丧志的地方(除非你债台高筑)
As you have seen in the point above it is possible to go to college and learn absolutely nothing worthwhile.
正如你在前文看到的一样，大学可以是个让人一事无成的地方。
It is a chance to party for four years straight, drink a lot, make out, have sex. All these things are good fun but are they worth getting into debt for?
四年来，你的生活里只有派对、酗酒、装逼和性。这些都很有趣，但为了这些陷入债务危机值得吗？
College is a parallel universe, if you miss a deadline you can usually wrangle an extension.
大学就像是个平行的宇宙，如果你错过了一次截止日期，通常会获得另一个延期。

There is very little that actually matters or causes you worry or stress and this absolutely and completely fails to prepare college graduates for the reality of the world at work.
其实生活里没多少真正重要的事情让你去操心、烦闷，这些琐事只会让你没时间去准备毕业后的工作。
In the real working world you can't coast along and then cram your work for the year into an all-night study session.
在真正工作的世界里，你不可能不劳而获，你能做的只有在这一年里整夜整夜地工作和学习。
You go to work from 9-5 (or more accurately 8am-9pm) and if you make a mistake it really matters.
早上9点上班，下午5点下班(实际上工作时间是8点到21点)，这个时候如果犯了错才是你真正应该担心的事情。
Because college life is so easy it is easy for students to fall into bad habits such as binge drinking.
大学生活太轻松了以至于很多学生养成了坏习惯，例如酗酒。
These habits can last a lifetime and can lead to persistent alcoholism and contribute to other diseases such as heart disease and high blood pressure.
这些坏习惯会伴随你的一生，也有可能导致持续性的酒精过敏。其他的疾病也会随之而来，比如心脏病和高血压。

4.Many graduates fail to find work in their chosen field
4.很多毕业生都找不到专业对口的工作
Over one third of all graduates end up working in fields that do not require a degree. They will often start years behind people of the same age who entered the workforce straight from school.
有三分之一以上的毕业生最终都找了份并没有学历要求的工作，因此他们与那些高中毕业后就直接工作的同龄人相比还落后了好几年。
More than 300,000 of the waitresses that serve you in American restaurants have college degrees as do over 100,000 janitors and nearly 60,000 laborers.
在美国，餐厅里30万服务生——比如说在服务你的那位——都有大学学位。此外还有十万大学生做了门警，将近六万做了普通的劳工。
All told there are approximately 17 million Americans with college degrees who are under employed.
约有170万美国大学生待业家中。

These people will not be benefitting from an education premium; instead they have been saddled with 4 years less experience, 4 years lower on the career ladder and a mountain of debt that their earnings just cannot service.
他们并不会因为受了四年额外的教育而在就业时占有优势，反而要因为缺少四年的工作经验、在事业之梯上落后了四年以及入不敷出的债务而承受了更多的压力。
The only benefit to these 17 million attending college was to the institutions they attended and the people employed there. They themselves will see nothing.
对这170万上过大学的人来说，他们上大学唯一的贡献就是给学校捐了一笔学费。而他们自己，对此一无所获。
Even studying a 'premium' degree like law is no guarantee of success.
甚至，学一些“有前途”的专业也同样未必能获得成功。
Research in 2012 showed that 44% of law school graduates were either unemployed (over 27% of all law school graduates) or working in jobs that did not require a law degree.
据2012年的一次调查数据显示，有法学学位的毕业生待业（超过总数的27%）或就职于不需要法学学位的工作的人，加起来有44%。