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  3. When European education ministers met in Bologna in 1999 and promised within a decade to forge a common market for universities,

When European education ministers met in Bologna in 1999 and promised within a decade to forge a common market for universities,

admin2012-03-23  31
问题     When European education ministers met in Bologna in 1999 and promised within a decade to forge a common market for universities, it seemed mere Euro-rhetoric. Big obstacles stopped students nipping abroad for a term, or getting degrees recognized. Many countries offered no degree below Masters level. Some examined course modules separately, others all in one go. Under the Erasmus programmed many students traveled to other European countries for between a term and a year—but they often found their universities reluctant to give them credit for it.
    Yet on April 28th no fewer than 46 European education ministers—from the European Union and 19 other countries, including Russia and Turkey—will gather in another ancient university city, Leaven, to declare the "Bologna process" a triumph. A "European credit-transfer system" is on its way; next year will bring a "European higher education area". There will be a standardized "diploma supplement" giving details of what students have learnt. And three-year Bachelors degrees followed by two-year Masters are now the general rule, with few exceptions.
    "The big surprise was that the Bologna process worked at all," says Jean-Marc Rapp, president of the European University Association. Bologna is neither an inter-governmental treaty nor an EU law. It credits the eastern European countries that joined Bologna in 1999 for some of the success. Their governments were itching to reform communist-era universities and delighted to have a template for it and their students were wild to travel.
    Another reason why some governments embraced Bologna was to give cover for reforms they wanted anyway. Shorter, more work-related degrees appealed to the Germans, keen to stop students hanging on for years at taxpayers’ expense. In France, changes to university financing have been called "Bologna". In Spain "Bologna" is the excuse for introducing fees for Masters degrees.
    Many students now anathematize "Bologna" as a capitalist plot. They plan protests in given; already, students have taken to the streets in France, Italy, Spain and Greece. The resemblance to the Anglo-American system, plus Bologna’s emphasis on graduate employability, is big grievances. Some academics fret that the secret aim is to privatize universities. Bologna’s endorsement of more autonomy could lead (horrors!) to more freedom for universities in hiring, promotion and pay.
    Europe is littered with historic universities (Bologna is the oldest, founded in 1088). But the paucity of European institutions and the ubiquity of American ones at the top of international league tables are a constant reminder of the gap between glorious past and mediocre present. For believers, Bologna shows the way to a future that will be glorious once more.
    Yet this vision of self-governing universities, footloose students and job ready graduates omits one big reason for European universities’ decline: money. In America, the gap between what governments pay and what universities need is made up privately, mainly by tuition fees. In most of Europe students pay nothing. Even in England, tuition fees are capped by the government at low levels.
    Europe’s universities have seen funding per student fall behind wage inflation by 1—2% a year over three decades. America devotes far more of its GDP to higher education. Burgle, a Brussels-based think-tank, finds that universities carrying out top-class research and leading league tables have both more autonomy and more money. If Europe delivers only one of these, it may not be enough.
According to the last but one paragraph, ______contribute(s) to the decline of European universities.
选项 A、the lack of financing
B、the gap between American and European universities
C、too many tuition fees
D、poor self-governing universities
答案A
解析 推断题。回文定位到倒数第二段。其第一句指出“这一展望(自治大学、自由自在的学生以及做好职业准备的毕业生)忽略了欧洲大学衰落的一个重要原因：资金”，接下来又提到在美国大学资金不足时主要通过收学费补足，而大多数欧洲国家的学生一分钱都不用交．这就更说明资金的缺乏使得欧洲大学无力改革，而渐渐衰落，故[A]“资金的缺乏”为答案。选项[B]“美国和欧洲大学之间的差距”，而原文提到的是在美国政府资助资金和大学所需资金之间的差距(由学费补足)，故排除；选项[C]“过高的学费”，而原文说大多数欧洲国家的学生不用交学费，何来学费过高，故排除；选项[D]“较差劲的自治大学”，原文的确提到了自治大学，但既未提“差劲”，也未提及这与欧洲大学衰落有任何关系，故排除。
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