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.
【B3】

选项

答案E

解析 空格上文指出,虽很难为教育机构提供的财务回报评级,但Climb目前运营的情况良好,其年利率平均为9%,约为政府资助利率的两倍,最高可达15%。如果没有证据表明是培训课程带来了回报,公司就会避开这些领域,比如表演和模特。由此可知,该空格应为总结性语言,说明该公司的运作模式。E项内容为“截至目前,该公司的运作模式已颇见成效:它的违约率处在很低的个位数水平”,与上文衔接自然,总结该段内容,故为答案。
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