中國大學學歷僅值300塊?

美國大學生正面臨畢業後就業市場低迷的痛苦，而在一個看起來似乎不太可能的地方也有着同樣的情況：中國。

American college students facing the misery of an anemic post-graduation job market have company in an unlikely-seeming place: China.

《新京報》22日的一篇報道援引中國一位高級勞動研究員上週末公佈的數據說，金融危機像突如其來的暴風掃蕩全球，中國似乎憑着強勁的增長平安地渡過了這場危機，然而，中國大學畢業生平均起薪每月只比農民工高300元，約45美元。

Despite entering a robust economy that seemed to weather the financial crisis as if were it a middling squall, China’s college graduates on average make only 300 yuan, or roughly $44, more per month than the average Chinese migrant worker, according to statistics cited over the weekend by a top Chinese labor researcher and reported today by the Beijing Times.

根據蔡昉的計算，從2003年以來，大學畢業生平均起薪保持在每月1500元左右。據《新京報》報道，蔡昉說，但同期內農民工的月工資由700元躍升至1200元。

By Mr. Cai’s calculations, college graduates have consistently earned around 1,500 yuan a month since 2003. Migrant workers, meanwhile, have seen their monthly wages rise from an average of 700 yuan to 1,200 yuan over roughly the same time period, MR. Cai said, according to the Beijing Times.

近年來，中國面臨大學畢業生過多的情況，很大程度上是由於過去十年內大學錄取比例上升，導致大學生數量每年以30%的增幅迅速膨脹。大量應屆畢業生面臨失業是導致平均工資數據形勢不佳的主要因素──2008屆近600萬畢業生約有三分之一未能在畢業後一年內找到工作。同時，製造業和建築業用工短缺使農民工對薪水的要求越來越高。

China has faced a surfeit of college graduates in recent years, thanks in large part to anenrollment boom that has seen the university student population swell by as much as 30% year-to-year over the last decade. High levels of unemployment among recent graduates—an estimated one-third of the country’s 5.6 million 2008 graduates failed to find work in their first year out of school—are a major drag on the average wage figures. Meanwhile, labor shortages in manufacturing and construction have enabled migrant workers to demand higher and higher wages.

在新聞門戶網站搜狐網這篇報道吸引的1800條評論中，很多人正發出了這樣的疑問。有些讀者將這則新聞看做某種反共產黨的諷刺（其中一位讀者寫道，我們的社會進步了，不再是學歷決定社會地位了），而大部分人則對大學教育的價值冷嘲熱諷，其中一位讀者建議，如果你考不上全國前五十所大學，乾脆就不要去上學了。

In the nearly 1,800 comments the report has attracted at the Chinese news portal Sohu, that’s precisely what many are doing. While some readers took the news with a certain post-Communist irony (“Our society has made progress–no longer does a diploma determine social status,” wrote one), the vast majority were cynical about the value of a college education. “If you don’t test into one the top 50 universities, don’t bother doing to school,” one reader advised. “It’s useless.”

中國大學的學歷真的這麼一文不值嗎？蔡昉說，並非如此。和葡萄酒一樣，大多數大學生的薪水會隨着時間大幅提高。但蔡昉說，負激勵效應已經開始出現苗頭，尤其是工薪階層家庭的學生，他們覺得學費和工資損失的代價太大。

Are Chinese degrees really so worthless? Not necessarily, according to Mr. Cai. Like wine, the wages of most college graduates improve significantly over time. But, Mr. Cai said, myopia is already starting to set in, particularly for working-class students for whom the combination of tuition and lost wages can seem too large a sacrifice.