I’ve been saving for years to give my two kids a debt-free college education, and as costs have risen I’ve pushed back retirement plans to hang on to that goal. Like many of the parents I interviewed for today’s Work & Family column, I’ve always thought I’d do whatever it takes to provide my kids a high-quality education. But as the recession continues, I sometimes wonder: how much is too much to give up, for the sake of financing college for your kids.
多年来我一直在存钱,希望让我的两个孩子不要靠借债上大学。随着花费的增加,我已经推迟 了退休计划，以实现这个目标。同我为了今天的《工作?家》栏目而采访的许许多多的父母一样，我一直认为我愿竭尽全力为我的孩子提供优质教育。但随着经济衰退 的持续,我有时在想:在给孩子筹集上大学的费用这件事上，到底代 价有多大才会让你放弃呢？
One parent I interviewed, a 65-year-old Bakersfield, Calif. , human-resource manager, is willing to risk his financial independence in retirement to enable his 23-year-old son to graduate debt-free from a state-university architecture program. His son earned his basic course requirements at community college and has been trying to work his way through his junior and senior years, this father says. But he can’t find a job that pays more than minimum wage. So the father is making up the difference between his son’s earnings and his $ 20,000-a-year tuition bill.
我采访过加州一位65岁的人力资源部经理贝克斯费尔德，他 情愿冒退休后财务自理的风险，让23岁的儿子在不借债的情况下就 读于州立大学的建筑专业。这位父亲说，他的儿子在社区学院完成 了基础课程,一直希望凭自己的努力学完大学三四年级的课程。但 他却找不到工资高于最低标准的工作。因此,父亲需要补上他儿子 的收入和每年2万美元的学费之间的差额。
Hard times call for greater parental sacrifices, he says. “How can you go to school, work part-time and get good grades, and pay off $ 20,000 a year? You can’t,” he says. “The days when people worked their way through college are gone for the foreseeable future, anyway.”
他说，艰难的世道要求父母作出更大的牺牲。他说广你怎么能 够边上学边兼职打工，既获得好成绩，又能交纳一年2万美元的学 费？你做不到。人们可以凭自己的努力读完大学的日子至少在可以 预见的将来是不会再回来了。”
Other parents, however, are rejecting tradeoffs they might have made in an easier economy. One Massachusetts family is giving up emotional ties to a “legacy school” attendedby relatives to send their daughter to a cheaper state university. They see a bachelor’s degree as only the beginning of her higher education, and they want to be able to ensure a secure retirement and help her later with graduate school.
不过,有些家长拒绝了本会在宽松的经济环境下作出的选择。 马萨诸塞州的一个家庭就放弃了亲戚们都上的一所用以保持情感 联系的“家族学校”，将女儿送到了一所更便宜的州立大学。他们将 学士学位仅仅看成是她接受高等教育的开始,他们希望能确保安全 的退休生活，然后帮助她进入研究生院深造。
Tough situations like these are ushering in a new era of price consciousness in choosing colleges, experts say.
专家们说，目前的这种严峻形势造成了在选择院校时注重价格 的一个新时代的出现。
Fewer families are willing or able to take out loans to finance college, and many middle-income families are shifting to public universities to save money, says a forthcoming study of 1,600 college students and parents, conducted by Sallie Mae and Gallup. And for now, at least, the engines that have enabled students and parents to keep paying more for college easy credit and growth in savings have stalled.
Sallie Mae和Gallup即将出炉一项对1600名大学生及其父母进行的研究。该研究显示,希望或能够借贷.就读大学的家庭减少了，靜巾产雜齡了省麵转 向了公立大学。至少就目前而言,使学生和家长能够为上大 学支付更高费用的推动力——宽松的信贷和储蓄的增长，已 陷人了停顿。
College costs are up 67% in the past decade at private colleges and 84% at public four-year universities, according to College Board data.
根据大学理事会的数据，在过去10年里,私立学 院的学费上涨了 67%，公立4年制大学的学费上涨了 84%。
Another family, in Boulder, Colo., had a young family member withdraw from an elite East Coast school to return home and enter the family business as a real-estate investor, while attending a nearby state university part-time. This student’s mother and aunt, who are sharing her college costs, believe she’ll be happier as a young adult if she’s financially independent and living close to family, rather than graduating with heavy debt load that requires her to get a fast-track job. “Our society needs to reconsider our blind commitment to college at any cost,” the aunt says.
在科罗拉多州的Boulder地区，另一个家庭让他们的孩 子从东海岸的某精英学校退学，返回家中进人家族的房地 产投资企业。然后,在业余时间就读于附近的一所州立大学。承担这位学生学费的妈妈和姑姑认 为，作为年轻人，如果她能经济上独立并住在离家近的地方，那她将会比毕业后偿还大笔债务而 从事快节奏的工作要更加幸福。这位姑姑说我们的社会需要对不惜任何代价上大学的盲目承 诺进行反思。”
Readers, how much is too much to give up, to pay for a high-quality college education for your kids? If you，ve been involved in a college choice, what factors guided your decisions?
读者们，到底代价有多大才会让你放弃让孩子接受优质的大学教育呢？如果你要面对上大学 的抉择,哪些因素会影响你的决定？