经济学人下载:副学士学习计划(ASAP)比平权运动更重要(1)

Growing up in Morris Heights, a poor neighbourhood in the Bronx where violence was omnipresent, Joel Cabrera thought his future would be either “death or jail, because that’s what the outcomes are here”. Middle school was like “a juvenile- detention facility”. High school did not interest him enough to finish. Had he stopped there, he would have faced a life on the edge of penury. Among high-school dropouts nationwide, average earnings are only $600 a week. To avoid that, Mr Cabrera enrolled in courses offered at his local community college. There he came across a scheme called ASAP (“Accelerated study in Associate Programmes”) that sought to push pupils like him—city residents without family wealth or familiarity with universities— to complete two-year degrees. 

乔尔·卡布雷拉在布朗克斯区的一个贫穷社区摩里斯高地长大，那里充斥着暴力，他认为自己的未来“要么是死亡，要么是坐牢，因为在这里只有这两种结果”。中学就像是一个“少年拘留所”。他也没有足够的兴趣上完高中。如果他就停在那里，他将会面临一生的穷困潦倒。全国的高中辍学者的每周平均收入只有600美元。为了避免这种情况，卡布雷拉报名了当地的社区学院的课程。在那里，他遇到了一个名为ASAP的计划（“副学士学习计划”），该计划旨在推动像他这样——没有家庭财富或对大学不熟悉的城市居民——完成两年的学位。

ASAP is designed to address a simply stated problem. Many low-income minority students enroll in college. But few finish. Only 34% of black men finish their bachelor’s degree within six years, compared with the average rate of 60%. Those individual decisions to drop out collectively amount to society-wide stratification. The racial gaps in earning college degrees have hardly budged since 1995. Simple as the problem may be to describe, the approach taken by ASAP is complicated. Rather than target one thing that derails students, the programme tries to tackle many at once. Pupils are given financial help, including money for textbooks and free MetroCards to get around the city. They must meet academic and career advisers several times a month. They are tracked by a data operation that detects pupils in precarious positions before they quit. This worked for Mr Cabrera, who continued to a bachelor’s degree, a few internships and a series of good jobs after that. 

ASAP的目的在于解决一个说起来很简单的问题。许多低收入的少数族裔进入了大学。但他们之中很少有人能完成学业。只有34%的黑人男性在六年内完成学士学位，而相较而言学士学位的平均通过率在60%。那些个人决定退学总体上等于社会范围的阶层分化。自1995年以来，获得大学学位的种族差异几乎没变。也许这个问题描述起来很简单，但是ASAP所采取的方法很复杂。这项计划不是针对学生退学这一件事，而是尝试一次解决多个问题。学生们获得了经济援助，包括买课本的钱和城市的免费地铁卡。他们必须每个月与学术和职业顾问进行几次会面。他们被一个数据操作系统追踪，这个数据操作系统可以在他们退学前检测他们的不稳定状态。这个系统对于卡布雷拉来说很管用，他继续学习直到获得学士学位，也获得了几个实习机会以及后续的一系列好的工作。