One parent I interviewed, a 65-year-old Bakersfield, Calif., human-resource manager, is willing to risk his financial independence in retirement to enable his 23-year-old son to graduate debt-free from a state-university architecture program. His son earned his basic course requirements at community college and has been trying to work his way through his junior and senior years, this father says. But he can't find a job that pays more than minimum wage. So the father is making up the difference between his son's earnings and his $20,000-a-year tuition bill.

　　我采访过加州一位65岁的人力资源经理，他想冒着丧失退休后财务独立性的危险让23岁的儿子在不借债的情况下就读州立大学的建筑专业。这位父亲说，他的儿子在社区学院完成了基础课程，一直希望凭自己的努力学完大学三、四年级的课程，但却找不到工资高于最低标准的工作。因此父亲需要补上他儿子的收入和每年2万美元的学费之间的差额。

　　Hard times call for greater parental sacrifices, he says. 'How can you go to school, work part-time and get good grades, and pay off $20,000 a year You can't,' he says. 'The days when people worked their way through college are gone for the foreseeable future, anyway.'

　　他说，艰难的世道要求父母做出更大的牺牲。他说，你怎么能够边上学，边兼职打工，获得好成绩，又能交纳一年2万美元的学费？你做不到。人们可以凭自己的努力读完大学的日子至少在可以预见的将来是不会再回来了。

　　Other parents, however, are rejecting tradeoffs they might have made in an easier economy. One Massachusetts family is giving up emotional ties to a 'legacy school' attended by relatives to send their daughter to a cheaper state university. They see a bachelor's degree as only the beginning of her higher education, and they want to be able to ensure a secure retirement and help her later with graduate school。

　　不过，有些家长拒绝了本会在宽松的经济环境下做出的选择。马萨诸塞州的一个家庭就放弃了与亲戚们都上的一所“家族学校”的感情纽带，将女儿送到了一所更便宜的州立大学。他们将学士学位仅仅看成是她接受高等教育的开始，他们希望能确保安全的退休生活，然后帮助她进入研究生院深造。

　　Tough situations like these are ushering in a new era of price consciousness in choosing colleges, experts say. Fewer families are willing or able to take out loans to finance college, and many middle-income families are shifting to public universities to save money, says a forthcoming study of 1600 college students and parents, conducted by Sallie Mae and Gallup. And for now, at least, the engines that have enabled students and parents to keep paying more for college easy credit and growth in savings have stalled. College costs are up 67% in the past decade at private colleges and 84% at public four-year universities, according to College Board data。

　　专家们说，目前的这种严峻形势造成了在选择院校时注重价格的一个新时代的出现。学生贷款营销协会(Sallie Mae)和盖洛普(Gallup)即将出炉一项对1,600名大学生及其父母进行的研究；该研究显示，希望或能够借贷就读大学的家庭数量减少了，许多中产家庭都为了省钱而转向了公立大学。至少就目前而言，使学生和家长能够为上大学支付更高费用的推动力──宽松的信贷和储蓄的增长──已陷入了停顿。根据大学理事会的数据，在过去十年里，私立学院的成本上升了67%，公立四年制大学的成本上升了84%。

　　Another family, in Boulder, Colo., had a young family member withdraw from an elite East Coast school to return home and enter the family business as a real-estate investor, while attending a nearby state university part-time. This student's mother and aunt, who are sharing her college costs, believe she'll be happier as a young adult if she's financially independent and living close to family, rather than graduating with a heavy debt load that requires her to get a fast-track job. 'Our society needs to reconsider our blind commitment to college at any cost,' the aunt says。

　　科罗拉多州的另一个家庭让一位年轻的家庭成员从东海岸的某精英学校退学，返回家中进入了从事房地产投资的家族企业，在业余时间就读附近的一所州立大学。这位学生的母亲和分担她大学费用的姑姑认为，作为年轻人，如果她能经济上独立，并住在离家近的地方，那她将会比背上沉重的债务毕业，从事快节奏的工作要更加幸福。这位姑姑说，我们的社会需要反思对不惜任何代价上大学的盲目承诺。