美国高校提出增加助学金费
US Colleges Move to Increase Financial Aid
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
A recent decision by Harvard University to expand financial aid is putting pressure on other schools to do the same.
The full price for one year at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is more than forty-five thousand dollars. Many other private colleges cost just as much. But Harvard is much wealthier than any other American university, so it has more to give.
Harvard already offers a free education to students from families that earn up to sixty thousand dollars a year. This has helped increase the numbers of lower income and minority students.
Now, the aim is to help all but the wealthiest American families pay for a Harvard education. The new policies announced last month will assist families that earn as much as one hundred eighty thousand dollars. These families will be asked to pay no more than ten percent of their income for college.
For example, a family earning one hundred twenty thousand dollars would pay about twelve thousand a year. Under existing student aid policies the amount is more than nineteen thousand.
What Harvard has done is change the way it offers financial aid. Undergraduates will not be expected to take out loans. Increases in grant aid will replace loans. Also, Harvard officials will no longer consider the value of a family's home when deciding how much aid to give.
Harvard says it expects to spend up to twenty-two million dollars more a year in financial aid. This will come from its endowment. A college endowment is money given by former students and others as gifts. Schools invest the money to earn more. Harvard's endowment is valued at thirty-five billion dollars.
Other universities with large endowments are also changing their financial aid policies. Examples include Yale, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.
Yale's endowment is the second largest after Harvard, at twenty-two and a half billion dollars. This week, Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, announced it will use more of that money for financial aid as well as scientific research. Yale may also admit more students.
But some colleges say they simply do not have enough money to compete with the new policies that are being announced.
Critics of the rising costs of a college education say schools are making these changes in an attempt to avoid action by Congress. Some lawmakers have criticized universities for raising their prices even as their endowments grow larger and larger.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.
这里是VOA特别英语教育报道。
哈佛大学的一个扩大资助学费的决定正在对其他学校产生压力，也得这么干。
在马萨诸塞州剑桥的哈佛大学一年全额学费超过45000美元。其他许多私立大学的费用与此相当。不过，哈佛比任何其他美国大学富裕得多，理应拿出更多的钱。
哈佛已经给年收入6万美元的家庭的学生提供免费教育。这已经帮助增加了低收入和未成年学生的数量。
现在的目标是帮助所有的美国家庭——不仅仅是最富有的部分家庭——能够受得起哈佛的教育。上个月宣布的新政策将帮助收入达18万美元的家庭。这些家庭要支付的学费不超过家庭收入的10%。例如：一个年收入12万美元的家庭每年大约支付12000美元。在现有的助学政策下，这一数字超过19000美元。
哈佛已经做到的是改变财务资助的提供方式。大学生不会期望学生贷款。增加助学金将取代贷款。此外，当决定给多少帮助时，哈佛官员将不再考虑一个家庭的资产的价值。
哈佛说它预计在一年的财务资助中要多花费2200万美元。这笔钱将要从助学基金中开支。学校的助学基金是由以前的学生和其他人士作为礼物送给学校的钱。
学校用这些钱投资以赚取更多收益。哈佛大学助学基金的总价值为350亿美元。
助学基金较多的其他大学也正在改变助学政策。例如耶鲁大学、普林斯顿大学和宾夕法尼亚大学。耶鲁大学的捐赠基金仅次于哈佛大学，为225亿美元。这星期在康涅狄格州纽黑文的耶鲁，宣布它将使用更多的基金助学如同科学研究一样。耶鲁大学还可以接纳更多的学生。
但是一些大学说他们完全没有足够的资金同正在公布的新政策竞争。
对大学教育费用的提高，批评家说学校正试图使这些改变避免由国会批准。一些议员批评大学在他们的捐赠的基金变得越来越多时仍在提高学费标准。
以上是VOA特别英语教育报道。由南希·斯坦贝撰稿。我史蒂夫·安贝。