In an old factory building in lower Manhattan a fintech startup is seeking answers to a question that has tormented teachers and

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问题     In an old factory building in lower Manhattan a fintech startup is seeking answers to a question that has tormented teachers and students for decades; what is the value of a given course, teacher or institution? Climb Credit, with just two dozen employees, provides student loans. The programmes it finances bring returns far higher than can be expected from even highly rated universities.
    Climb does not claim to nurture billionaires, nor to care much about any of the intangible benefits of education. 【B1】______ The average size of its loans is $10,000 and it normally finances programmes of less than a year. The subjects range from coding to web design, from underwater welding to programming robots for carmakers (which has the highest rate of return). Some students have scant formal education; others advanced degrees. The rate of return they get is calculated as the uplift in earnings after the course of study, minus its cost (which includes that of servicing the loan, and takes account of the absence of earnings during the course).
    Climb’s results so far are hardly conclusive. It has released only the number of loan applications: just 10,000 since its founding in 2014. Many institutions it works with do not offer the four-year and two-year courses eligible for federal funding, which account for 19m students. 【B2】______
    Past efforts to rank education providers based on the financial return they offer have struggled. The data are often drawn from patchy surveys. It is hard to compare different courses over different time spans. Climb tracks every loan it makes, along with data such as subject area, teacher, institution, job offers and salaries. Its interest rates average 9% a year, roughly double the government rate, and can be as high as 15%. It shuns some fields, such as acting or modelling, altogether, if there is no evidence that a course delivers a return. 【B3】______
    Climb’s credit offering covers 70 institutions; another 150 are being vetted. As many as 3,000 may eventually qualify. Climb’s attraction is obvious: an expanded student base. But many will balk at the tough provisions Climb imposes. Students must be given a drop-out period, when they can leave without any loan obligation. (A review of data on conventional student loans suggested that those most likely to default had begun classes, taken on debt and then quit the course before they had acquired any new skills.) If a student does default, the school is usually responsible for more than 20% of the unpaid debt. 【B4】______
    In conventional student loans, interest and principal accumulate silently. 【B5】______
Climb students start making tiny payments as soon as they take out a loan (refunded if they drop out fast). Climb hopes to make its success-rate data public, to help both students and lenders. It already makes good use of its network of education providers: it has hired three former students from institutions within it.
[A] Another twist on the traditional lending model is that Climb has managed to wring from the schools it’s working with an agreement that reduces the amount of loans a student has to pay back if they aren’t able to find a job.
[B] Instead, its market for now is among the 5m studying in more focused programmes.
[C] On graduation, the monthly repayment bill comes as a shock.
[D] Rather, it focuses on sharp, quantifiable increases in earnings.
[E] So far, the firm’s approach has worked; its default rates are in the low single digits.
[F] That gives it an incentive to pick students carefully and train them well.
[G] Borrowers repay ClimbCredit based on the increase of their earnings minus the costs associated with servicing the loan.
【B2】

选项

答案B

解析 本段开头指出,Climb的业绩如何目前尚难定论。它只披露了贷款的申请数量:自2014年公司成立以来,才收到一万笔,因许多与之合作的学校不符合联邦奖学金的条件。这种学校一般会要求学习时间长达四年期和两年期,入学学生人数达1900万名。故下文应指明Climb的目标客户。B项内容为“而它目前的市场是接收学习更有针对性课程的500万名学生”,与上文衔接自然,故为答案。
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