Student debt in the U.S. now stands at about $1.5 trillion.
如今，美国的学生贷款总额约为1.5万亿美元。
It's a number we often call a crisis, and people warn students to avoid borrowing if they possibly can.
这是一个我们经常称之为危机的数字，人们警告学生，如果可能的话，避免借贷。
One of the ways schools have tried to help students cut down on their debt is to stop packaging federal loans with scholarships and grants in financial aid award letters.
学校试图帮助学生减少债务的方式之一就是在助学金授奖信中停止将奖学金和助学金与联邦贷款捆绑在一起。
It could be the case that, even if a student were eligible for a loan, the award letter wouldn't show it.
那么有可能出现这样的情况，即使一个学生有资格获得贷款，那份奖励信也不会显示出来。
(Students would have to contact the office of financial aid directly for for information on loans.)
（学生必须直接联系财务援助办公室(office of financial aid)来查询贷款信息）
About half of community colleges are now doing this.
大约有一半的社区大学都在这样做。
"It's part of the narrative of the student debt crisis," says Lesley Turner, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Maryland.
马里兰大学(University of Maryland)经济学助理教授莱斯利·特纳(Lesley Turner)表示:“这是关于学生债务危机的故事的一部分。”
"Avoid borrowing unless it's absolutely necessary."
“除非绝对必要，否则不要借钱。”
But what if those loans are actually a good thing?
但如果这些贷款真的是件好事呢?
Turner, along with Benjamin Marx at the University of Illinois, set out to study this: What impact does not packaging loans have on whether students borrow?
特纳和伊利诺伊大学的本杰明·马克思(Benjamin Marx)开始研究这个问题:不打包贷款对学生是否借贷有什么影响？
And for students who were offered loans in their letters and took them – did that influence how they did in school?
而对于那些通过信件获得贷款并接受贷款的学生，这是否影响了他们在学校的表现?
On the first question: Did they borrow more? The answer was yes; students who were offered a loan amount in their letters were more likely to borrow.
关于第一个问题:他们借了更多的钱吗?答案是肯定的;那些在信件中获得贷款的学生更有可能借钱。
And what happened to those students who borrowed?
而那些借贷了的学生呢?
"They attempted more courses, they earned more credit, and they had higher grade point averages," says Turner.
特纳说:“他们尝试了更多的课程，获得了更多的学分，平均绩点也更高。”
The research also found a sizable increase in the likelihood of those students transferring to a four-year public school for a bachelor's degree.
研究还发现，这些学生转到四年制公立学校攻读学士学位的可能性有相当大的增长
So why is this all happening?
那为什么会这样呢？
"The most likely explanation," explains Turner "is that this loan allowed students to work less."
“最可能的解释是，”特纳解释说，“这种贷款让学生的工作时间减少了。”
Many students attending community college are working while in school, so the loans may have freed up time in their schedules to take more classes, to study or to finish their schoolwork.
许多在社区大学上学的学生在上学的同时还在工作，所以这些贷款可能给他们腾出了更多的时间来上课、学习或完成作业。
Even though tuition on these campuses is low – or for some low-income students, free — there are other expenses.
尽管这些学校的学费很低——或者对一些低收入家庭的学生来说是免费的——但还有其他费用。
"The cost of college creates a stress," says Oded Gurantz, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri who studies higher education.
密苏里大学研究高等教育的助理教授欧迪德.格兰茨说:“上大学的成本造成了压力。”
"So if the money frees [students] up so they're not focusing on where they're going to get their next meal, I actually think it makes a lot of sense that it could help their academic achievement."
“所以，如果这些钱能让学生们腾出时间，让他们不再关注下一顿饭着落在哪里，我认为这对他们的学业成绩有很大帮助。”
The instinct to avoid loans has only grown as the amount of student debt has swelled in recent years.
近年来，随着学生贷款数量的增加，人们避免贷款的本能也在增长。
"There's plenty of risk embedded in taking on a student loan," says Mark Huelsman, an associate director at the think-tank Demos.
德莫斯智库的副主任马克.休斯曼说:“申请学生贷款存在很大的风险。”
"Student debt can impact the ability to buy a house, impact the ability to save for retirement, or save for a rainy day or a crisis."
“学生债务会影响买房的能力，影响为退休存钱的能力，或是为未雨绸缪或危机存钱的能力。”
Sure there are reasons not to borrow, but Huelsman says, on an individual level — if the difference between a small loan is finishing college or not finishing — that's a different story.
当然，不借钱是有理由的，但威尔斯曼说，从个人层面来说——如果小额贷款关系到大学能不能念完——那就另当别论了。
"We can critique the current system, but we don't want to pull the rug out from someone who just needs that last $2,000 to pay for food."
“我们可以批评当前的体系，但我们不想对一个需要那最后的2000美元来买到食物的人釜底抽薪。”
It's also true that not all student debt is created equal, explains Sandy Baum at the Urban Institute.
城市学院的桑迪.鲍姆解释说，并不是所有的学生债务都是平等的，这也是事实。
For many people, student loans helped them get a degree and a higher-paying job.
对许多人来说，学生贷款帮助他们获得学位和一份薪水更高的工作。
"That's what student loans are meant to do," she says.
她说:“学生贷款的目的就是要这样。”
"It's not that loans are bad," says Gurantz, from the University of Missouri.
“并不是说贷款是坏的，”来自密苏里大学的格兰茨说。
There are certain groups of students we should be more concerned about, like students who take out small amounts of loans, don't earn their degree and have a very difficult time paying back those loans, he says.
他说，有一些学生我们应该更加关注，比如那些申请小额贷款的学生，他们没有拿到学位，偿还贷款的难度也很大。
Student loans also impact students of different races and genders in different ways.
学生贷款还以不同的方式影响着不同种族和性别的学生。
"There's no one size fits all: All students should borrow or all students should not borrow," says Turner, "but loans aren't always a bad thing."
特纳表示:“没有一种方法是万能的:所有学生都应该贷款，或者所有学生都不应该贷款。但贷款并不总是坏事。”
It's too soon to know if the students in this research — the ones who took out loans and did better — will fall into the loan trap, or be the students who end up getting a degree.
现在还不能确定参与这项研究的学生——那些申请贷款并且做得更好的学生——是否会落入贷款陷阱，或者成为最终获得学位的学生。
end
对于美国大学生贷款问题，朋友们有什么看法呢？欢迎给amber留言哦！
感谢关注
跟amber一起看世界
联系客服
