名額供不應(yīng)求 美國初創(chuàng)大學(xué)競爭常青藤

A San Francisco start-up aiming to offer an IvyLeague-level education at a fraction of the cost ofelite US colleges has become more selective thanHarvard or Yale in its third year of operation.

旨在提供常春藤水準(zhǔn)教育、而收費遠低于美國精英高校的一所舊金山初創(chuàng)大學(xué)，在投入運營后的第三年已變得比哈佛(Harvard)或耶魯(Yale)更有選擇性。

Minerva, whose students move between California,Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul, Bangalore, Istanbul andLondon while studying a largely online curriculum,will announce this week that it received more than 16,000 applications from 50 countries for306 places, for an acceptance rate of just 1.9 per cent.

Minerva的學(xué)生們分布于加利福尼亞、柏林、布宜諾斯艾利斯、首爾、班加羅爾、伊斯坦布爾和倫敦，所學(xué)課程以在線授課為主。該校將在本周宣布，它從50個國家收到了逾1.6萬份申請，而招生名額只有306個，這意味著錄取率只有1.9%。

Harvard last week said it had accepted a record low 5.2 per cent of the 39,000 applicants for itsclass of 2020, making it the most selective of the Ivy League universities. Yale’s acceptancerate stands at 6.3 per cent and Stanford, which is outside the traditional Ivy League groupingof prestigious colleges, accepts only 4.7 per cent.

哈佛上周表示，其2020級的申請人達到3.9萬，錄取率只有5.2%，創(chuàng)下最低紀(jì)錄，使其成為常青藤大學(xué)中最有選擇性的學(xué)府。耶魯大學(xué)的錄取率為6.3%，而不在傳統(tǒng)常春藤大學(xué)之列的斯坦福大學(xué)(Stanford)的錄取率為4.7%。

The interest in Minerva, an intense for-profit undergraduate programme, shows students’growing appetite for alternatives to increasingly costly US colleges. Minerva is one of severalefforts to rethink traditional education models, ranging from huge open online courses (Moocs)to immersive entrepreneurial alternatives to business school, such as the DO School.

Minerva提供高強度的營利性本科課程。對該校的興趣突顯學(xué)生越來越傾向于避開學(xué)費日益昂貴的美國高校，寧愿選擇它們的替代品。Minerva是反思傳統(tǒng)教育模式的多項努力之一;這些努力包括巨大的開放式在線課程(Mooc)，以及商學(xué)院的沉浸式創(chuàng)業(yè)替代品，如DO School。

College costs have risen far faster than inflation, and US student debt doubled from $600bn in2008 to more than $1.2tn by the end of 2015. That has made the cost of higher education atheme of the 2016 election campaign, with Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s rival for theDemocratic nomination, mobilising young voters with a pledge of free tuition at public collegesand universities.

高校學(xué)費的漲幅遠遠超過通脹，美國學(xué)生的債務(wù)已從2008年的6000億美元增至2015年底的逾1.2萬億美元，增幅超過一倍。這使得高等教育成本成了2016年大選競選活動的主題之一，與希拉里•克林頓(HillaryClinton)角逐民主黨總統(tǒng)候選人提名的伯尼•桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)以公立學(xué)院和大學(xué)免學(xué)費的承諾動員年輕選民。

With no sports teams, libraries or other overheads that contribute to the prestige oftraditional universities but inflate costs, Minerva charges about $28,000 a year for tuition,room, board and other fees, offering scholarships through a non-profit arm. That compares withan estimated annual cost of $64,000 to attend Princeton.

Minerva沒有運動隊、圖書館或其它有利于提高傳統(tǒng)大學(xué)的聲望、但導(dǎo)致費用扶搖直上的開支。該校每年收費約2.8萬美元，包括學(xué)費、食宿和其它收費，并通過一個非營利性的部門提供獎學(xué)金。相比之下，在普林斯頓大學(xué)(Princeton)入學(xué)的年度成本估計高達6.4萬美元。

“Students are realising that institutions can’t just sit on their brands that they’ve built overdecades or centuries and deliver the same ineffective experience,” said Ben Nelson, the formerSnapfish president who founded Minerva. “Much like in technology, the service industry, travel,entertainment, transportation, or any other field you can think of, when an undeniablybetter offering comes around, people flock to it.”

“學(xué)生們意識到，高校不能只是依靠他們在數(shù)十年乃至數(shù)百年打造起來的品牌吃老本，提供一成不變的無效體驗，”Minerva創(chuàng)始人、曾經(jīng)擔(dān)任Snapfish總裁的本•納爾遜(Ben Nelson)表示。“就像在科技、服務(wù)業(yè)、旅游、娛樂、交通，以及你能想到的其它任何領(lǐng)域一樣，當(dāng)一種不可否認的更好產(chǎn)品出現(xiàn)時，人們會趨之若鶩。”

Minerva has raised $70m from investors including Benchmark Capital and three Chinesegroups; TAL Education Group, ZhenFund and Yongjin Group. It opened its doors in September2014, taking in 69 students from 2,500 applicants. Last year, it had 11,000 applicants andaccepted 220.

Minerva已募集了7000萬美元資本，投資者包括標(biāo)桿資本(Benchmark Capital)和三家中資集團：好未來教育集團(TAL Education Group)、真格基金(ZhenFund)以及涌金集團(Yongjin Group)。它在2014年9月開業(yè)，從2500申請人中招收了69名學(xué)生。去年，它從1.1萬申請人中招收了220名學(xué)生。