不仅是学生，家庭也感受到了学生贷款危机的压力

Families, Not Just Students, Feel The Weight Of The Student Loan Crisis

不仅是学生，家庭也感受到了学生贷款危机的压力

For many college students settling into their dorms this month, the path to campus — and paying for college — started long ago. And it likely involved their families.

对于本月刚搬进宿舍的许多大学生来说，通往校园的道路——以及支付大学学费——很久以前就开始了。而且好像涉及到了他们的家庭。

The pressure to send kids to college, coupled with the realities of tuition, has fundamentally changed the experience of being middle class in America, says Caitlin Zaloom, an anthropologist and associate professor at New York University. It's changed the way that middle class parents raise their children, she adds.

纽约大学人类学家、副教授凯特琳扎卢姆说，送孩子上大学的压力，加上学费这一现实问题，已经从根本上改变了美国中产阶级的经历。她补充说，这改变了中产阶级父母抚养孩子的方式。

Zaloom interviewed dozens of families taking out student loans for her new book, Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost. She defines those families as middle class because they make too much to qualify for federal aid — but too little to pay the full cost of a degree at most colleges.

扎卢姆采访了几十个申请学生贷款的家庭，为她的新书《负债:家庭如何不惜一切代价上大学》做准备。她将这些家庭定义为中产阶级，因为他们挣的钱很多，而没有获得联邦资助的资格，但对于大多数大学的全部学费，又因为太少而无法支付。

How would you describe the world of student debt?

你如何描述学生债务的世界?

Families have really been transformed by debt, and really by the problem of dreaming about sending a kid to college and trying very hard to pay for it — oftentimes from the very earliest moments of a child's life. I think what we don't take account of, nearly enough, is what that experience is like. That's the thing that I think that we need to be focusing on.

家庭真的被债务改变了，真的被梦想送孩子上大学并努力支付学费的问题改变了——通常从孩子刚出生的时刻就开始了。我认为，我们没有充分考虑到的是，这种经历是什么样的。这就是我认为我们需要关注的事情。

You argue in the book that the idea of going to college is pervasive in American life.

你在书中说上大学的想法在美国生活中很普遍。

It is pervasive. That message is coming at families from every direction: that being a success in America depends upon the ability to get into college, to get an education and to graduate. But that itself depends on the ability to pay, which thrusts us right into the paradox of it all — which is that on the one hand, young adults and the parents who support them have this very clear goal about getting a college education. On the other hand, that is going to cost them dearly.

它是普遍存在的。这一信息正从四面八方传达到各个家庭:在美国取得成功取决于能否上大学、接受教育和毕业。但这本身取决于支付能力，这让我们陷入了一个矛盾的境地——一方面，年轻人和支持他们的父母有一个非常明确的目标，那就是接受大学教育。另一方面，这将使他们付出昂贵的代价。

And this affects people of different races differently?

这对不同种族的人有不同的影响吗?

Absolutely. It it does not affect everyone the same way at all. And too often we focus on big aggregate numbers that lump everybody together. The $1.5 trillion of outstanding debt, the average of $30,000 for undergraduate borrowers ... Those numbers put everyone together in the same group. But of course and predictably, women and people of color bear the burden more than more than their white, male peers.

绝对有影响。它根本不会以同样的方式影响每个人。我们太过关注将所有人聚集在一起这一庞大的总数。1.5万亿美元的未偿债务，平均3万美元的本科借贷者…这些数字把所有人放在同一组。但当然，可以预见的是，女性和有色人种承受的压力比与他们同龄的白人男性更大。

They graduate with more debt. Takes them longer to pay it off. They're more likely to go into default.

他们毕业时负债累累。他们需要更长的时间来还清债务。他们更有可能违约。

Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?

在（负债）隧道的尽头有光吗?

Parents and students are totally committed to higher education. They are so committed to college and they are so committed to getting an education to realize their kid's potential, to become citizens of the world, to make the world a better place.

父母和学生完全致力于高等教育。他们如此执着于上大学，如此执着于接受教育，以实现他们孩子的潜力，成为世界公民，让世界变得更美好。

What I would do about it, first and foremost. is to start funding the public higher education systems in this country so that they could actually be a reasonable low-cost or free-tuition option for families.

我首先要做的是，开始资助这个国家的公共高等教育系统，这样他们就可以成为家庭的一个合理的低成本或免费的选择。