VOA慢速英语 2008 0117a

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

An endowment is money from donations and investments. Colleges use endowment money for student aid and campus improvements, and for financial security.

But college costs in the United States have been rising faster than inflation. Graduates often face years of debt from student loans. Yet more than sixty colleges and universities, half of them public, have endowments worth at least one billion dollars.

Critics say schools with a lot of money should be sharing more of their wealth to ease the struggle for families. As we reported last week, some now plan to do just that. These include Harvard and Yale. They will also give money to families that earn much more than those that now receive aid.

Harvard has by far the largest endowment of any American university, thirty-five billion, followed by Yale at twenty-two and a half billion.

Yet some educational activists¹ worry what might happen as less-endowed colleges try to compete with these changes. They say the pressure to help upper middle-class families might mean less aid for poor students.

 
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley thinks it is reasonable to expect for colleges and universities to spend at least five percent of their endowment money

Colleges and their endowments are excused from taxes. Other tax-exempt groups are required to spend at least five percent of their endowments each year. Some people, including Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, think it is reasonable to consider such a requirement for colleges.

The senator praised Harvard and Yale for their plans and said he hopes others will follow.

Senator Grassley is the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which deals with tax policy. Last September, at his urging, the committee questioned experts about this issue.

One was Lynn Munson of the Center for College Affordability² and Productivity. She says universities pay out only about four percent of their endowments, yet their investments earn much more than that.

A study found that endowments of more than one billion dollars earned an average return of fifteen percent in two thousand six. The average for all endowments was just under eleven percent.

But some experts say most endowment money has to remain invested so schools are not hurt when markets fall.

Also, universities point out that donors³ often restrict the uses for their donations. Still, Lynn Munson said forty-five percent of endowment money at private schools is unrestricted, and twenty percent at public colleges.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.    

1 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 affordability   

可购性

参考例句：

• Performance-Based Logistics Affordability: Can We Afford Categorical Conversion to Performance-Based Acquisition? 基于性能的后期的可承受性：能否担负得起向基于性能的采办的无条件的转变？
• There would be no crisis of affordability, as't for food or clothing. 就想食物与服装一样，因为供给没有危机。

3 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》