Let's Stop Pretending College Degrees Don't Matter
让我们不要再假装大学学历不重要了
By Ben Wildavsky
Scanning the headlines， it would be easy to believe that a college degree is becoming increasingly irrelevant in a fast-evolving job market.
浏览新闻标题时，我们很容易相信，在这个快速发展的就业市场中，大学学历正变得越来越无关紧要。
Fourteen states， including 10 in the past year alone， have dropped degree requirements for many state jobs.
美国已有14个州取消了对许多州政府职位的学历要求，其中有10个州是在过去一年之内取消要求的。
As always， it's useful to look at what economists call “revealed preferences“— or what people do， regardless of what they say.
像通常情况一样，看一看经济学家们所说的“显示性偏好”是很有用的，意思是，看一看人们是怎么做的，而不要看他们是怎么说的。
The economic advantage of getting a college degree remains at just about an all-time high when compared with the average earnings of Americans with only a high-school diploma.
就平均收入而言，相较于只拥有高中文凭的美国人，拥有大学学历者的经济优势仍在，且接近历史最高水平。
In April 2022， a major study by the Society for Human Resource Management， or S.H.R.M.， found that 71 percent of executives said that some alternative credentials are equivalent to a bachelor's degree. But only 58 percent of supervisors (most likely beneath those executives on the organization chart) concurred， a figure that fell to 36 percent for human resources professionals， or those typically closest to hiring decisions.
2022年4月，美国人力资源管理协会（简称“S.H.R.M.”）的一项重大研究发现，71%的高管表示，一些其他类型的资质证明可以等同于学士学位。但只有58%的主管（职位很可能在组织结构中位于高管之下）同意该观点。在人力资源专业人士中，这一比例降至36%，而这些人通常与招聘决策最为密切相关。
The broad education and targeted skills that college graduates usually obtain prepare them for career success. That includes analytical and communications abilities， tailored preparation in popular subjects like business， nursing and computer science， or liberal arts majors that have significant long-term benefits. When undergrads are also able to develop their social capital to build professional networks， so much the better.
大学毕业生通常可以获得广泛的通识教育和特定的专业技能，帮助他们为职业成功做好准备。这包括分析和沟通能力，商科、护理、计算机科学等热门学科中专业对口的职业准备，或是可让人长期显著获益的文理基础学科专业。如果本科生也能发展自己的社会资本，从而建立职业人际关系网，那就更好了。
College degree requirements aren't sacred. But they reflect the unmistakable reality that higher education helps people do well.
对于大学学历的要求并不神圣。但它们反映了一个不容置疑的现实，即高等教育帮助人们取得成功。