There was a time when news about Britain’s universities was little noticed. Few cared because few were included（句型，牵扯的人少所以关注度低都是这句话）. Higher education was for a tightly-defined group — doctors, teachers, scientists and priests, members of a revered cadre of professions and almost exclusively male.曾几何时，有关英国大学的消息几乎无人关注。没人关心是因为上大学的人凤毛麟角。高等教育面向的是一个严格限定的群体——医生、教师、科学家和牧师——各职业受人尊敬的骨干队伍成员，几乎清一色的男性。
V-T If you revere someone or something, you respect and admire them greatly. 【and】N-COUNT A cadre is a small group of people who have been specially chosen, trained, and organized for a particular purpose.
ADV Exclusively is used to refer to situations or activities that involve only the thing or things mentioned, and nothing else.
Two world wars created the desperate need for people trained for a new world where science, engineering an mathematics was fundamental to defence and wealth.两次世界大战造就了对人才的迫切需求，这些人才是为一个全新世界准备的，在这个新世界，科学、工程和数学是国防和财富的根本。
A new generation started on the path to a well-paid career by studying for degrees that would have been irrelevant to and beyond the ambitions of their parents. The grammar school boys and girls of the postwar years created an image of university as a focus for the hopes of ordinary families.新的一代人通过攻读父母辈不会想也不敢想（句型）的学位走上了通往高薪职业的道路。二战后文法学校的学生创造的大学形象成为了普通家庭希望的焦点。
文法学校（grammar school）——是西方一种历史悠久的普通学校类型。英国近现代主要中等教育机构。发源于古代希腊雅典，为私立初等学校，招收7岁～14岁儿童，收取学费；学习简单的读、写、算，读和写，以荷马的史诗《伊利亚特》、《奥德赛》及赫西俄德的诗篇为主要教材，学习计算常利用手指、卵石制作的计算板、算盘等演算工具；学生可同时进入以学习音乐为主的弦琴学校——喵大歪楼
The path was still narrow, but there was a crock of gold at the end. So parents whose offspring were still excluded looked at the prosperity of university graduates, and said: “More, please.”这条路仍很狭窄，但尽头藏着宝藏。因此，看到大学毕业生事业兴旺发达，那些子女仍被大学拒之门外的父母会说：“请多招些吧。”
N-COUNT A crock is a clay pot or jar.
British employers joined this chorus. The government listened, and university expansion started, first by growing some of the older institutions and then by creating new ones, as recommended in the epoch-making（词汇） Robbins report of 1963, which concluded that undergraduate places “should be available to all who were qualified for them by ability and attainment”.英国雇主也加入了呼吁大学扩招的行列。政府听取了建议，大学开始扩张，正如划时代的1963年《罗宾斯报告》(Robbins Report)建议的那样，先是扩大一些老牌院校，接着是成立新的高校。该报告的结论是，高等教育“应向所有能力和学识符合资格的人开放”。
N-COUNT When there is a chorus of criticism, disapproval, or praise, that attitude is expressed by a lot of people at the same time.
N-COUNT An attainment is a skill you have learned or something you have achieved.
Some of this was achieved by converting technical institutes, followed by awarding university status to the former polytechnics（词汇） in the early 1990s and then removing the cap on student numbers in 2015.高等教育规模的扩大部分通过升格技术学院实现，然后是在上世纪90年代初赋予之前的理工学院大学地位，后又在2015年取消了大学招生人数上限。
Now, more than 50 years after the Robbins reforms, Sam Gyimah, the higher education minister, criticises universities for taking a “bums on seats” attitude to recruitment. But he is attacking a reasonable response by the sector to a sustained political push to produce ever more graduates.如今，罗宾斯改革已过去50多年，高等教育大臣萨姆•吉玛(Sam Gyimah)批评了大学对招生采取的“多多益善”（句型）的态度。但他抨击的是高等教育部门对培养更多大学毕业生的持续政治推力的合理回应。
The economy, meanwhile, is no longer absorbing the supply of graduate recruits at the same rate. The first generation of grammar school graduates had emerged to take new jobs created in a booming economy. Their successors were still well off. But as more graduates emerged, and as the global economy changed, the financial advantage in life of a degree was bound to drop off.与此同时，英国经济无法再以过去的速度吸纳应届毕业生。第一代文法学校毕业生崭露头角，拿走了繁荣的经济创造的新就业机会。他们的后继者的境况也还不错。但随着更多毕业生走出校门，以及全球经济形势发生变化，学位能给人生带来的金钱上的优势必将减弱（观点）。
We must be careful not to overstate this. For most graduates, the economic return on their investment of time and money is good, but it gets harder and harder to make a beneficial choice; there is now an enormous range of places and courses to study. As the system has expanded, however, first to meet former prime minister Tony Blair’s target of 50 per cent participation in higher education among young people, and then to continue this goal of wider access under Conservative ministers keen to promote aspiration, parents became worried — about the quality of the education their children receive, and about whether a degree will any longer secure them that gilded life.我们必须小心翼翼不要夸大这一点。对多数大学毕业生而言，他们投入的时间和金钱所带来的经济回报都不错，但要做出有益的选择越来越难；现在有种类繁多的可供学习的高校和课程。然而，随着高校体系的扩大——首先是实现了英国前首相托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)让50%的年轻人接受高等教育的目标，接下来是在渴望推动理想的保守党大臣领导下继续实现这个扩大受教育范围的目标——父母们开始担心子女接受的教育的质量，以及获得学位是否还能保证让他们过上镀金生活。
V-T If you say that someone is overstating something, you mean they are describing it in a way that makes it seem more important or serious than it really is.
N-VAR Someone's aspirations are their desire to achieve things.
The government did not want to pay any more for this expansion; in fact, it wanted to pay less. So ministers of all parties collectively decided: “Lets marketise it!” A regulated market with a well-produced website to tell you all the metrics（词汇） you need as a consumer. We will get those students who can afford it to pay through a loan scheme. We will encourage new private universities to compete. The students will make better choices and the quality of higher education will go up.英国政府不想为高校扩张多增加任何支出；实际上，它希望减少支出。因此各党大臣们集体决定：“把它市场化！”一个有监管的市场加一个制作精良的网站会告诉你消费者需要了解的所有指标。我们将让那些负担得起的学生通过贷款计划付学费。我们将鼓励新的私立大学参与竞争。这些学生将做出更好的选择，高等教育的质量将提高。
This did not work. Higher education is now a mess（观点）. Two-thirds of UK students will never pay off their loan debt. Last month’s House of Lords report on the sector described the present university finance system as “inefficient”. The maintenance loans system designed to support disadvantaged students（词汇） is rightly condemned as “deeply unfair”. And, their lordships conclude, the incentives offered to students and universities have a negative effect on both provision and demand（词汇）.这没有奏效。高等教育现在一团糟。三分之二的英国大学生永远不会偿清贷款。上议院上月针对高等教育发布的报告形容现在的大学财务体系为“低效”。旨在支持贫困学生的生活费贷款体系理被理由充分地谴责为“深度不公”。这些爵爷们的结论是，给学生和大学提供的激励举措对供求两端都产生了负面影响。
V-T If you condemn something, you say that it is very bad and unacceptable.【OR】V-T If authorities condemn a building, they officially decide that it is not safe and must be pulled down or repaired. 【OR】V-T If someone is condemned to a punishment, they are given this punishment.
But nobody knows how to clear up this mess. The government has responded to intensifying political pressures, particularly the repayment costs on student loans, with a review of higher education, led by Philip Augar. But the review is not framed to address the most critical question: what and who is higher education for?但没人知道如何收拾这一乱局。英国政府已对日益增大的政治压力（尤其是学生贷款的偿还成本）做出回应，在菲利普•奥加尔(Philip Augar)带领下对高等教育进行评估。但这种评估针对的不是解决最关键的问题：高等教育为的是什么、为的是谁？（观点）
Meanwhile, in our new marketised environment, financial constraints dominate (ministers have capped the amount a university receives to teach each student) along with tough targets （词汇）for inclusion . We work hard to ensure a good experience for students newly empowered to give unvarnished feedback that affects official rankings.与此同时，在我们新的市场化的环境中，财力拮据成为主要问题（大臣们对大学学费设置了上限），还有艰巨的包容性目标。我们努力确保学生们获得良好体验，因为他们新被赋予的提供直接反馈（词汇）的权力可以影响大学的官方排名。
V-T/V-I To dominate a situation means to be the most powerful or important person or thing in it. 【OR】V-T If a building, mountain, or other object dominates an area, it is so large or impressive that you cannot avoid seeing it.
Attracting fee income means attracting more students. The approach to admissions（词汇） we see today is exactly what you would expect given the market in higher education the politicians have created for us.增加学费收入意味着吸引更多学生。在这个政客们为我们创造的高等教育市场，你对现在看到的这种招生方式就不会感到意外了。
,
