这篇文章摘自《同等学力申请硕士学位英语阅读理解120篇》（中国人民大学出版社），主要讲解的是受教育程度与社会需求的关系，大家可以细细品味一下。“你可以将收入的高低和受教育的高低对等起来，即接受能够为提高国民生产总值有点用处的教育就足够，而不要接受过多地教育，以至于没有人能够从你身上得到利润。”

When they advise your kids to “get an education” if you want to raise your income, they tell you only half the truth. What they really mean is to get just enough education to provide manpower for your society, but not too much that you prove an embarrassment to your society.

Get a high school diploma, at least. Without that, you are occupationally dead, unless your name happens to be George Bernard Shaw or Thomas Alva Edison and you can successfully drop out in grade school.

Get a college degree, if possible. With a B.A. , you are on the launching pad. But now you have to start to put on the brakes. If you go for a master’s degree, make sure it is an M.B.A., and only from a first-rate university. Beyond this , the famous law of diminishing returns begins to take effect.

Do you know, for instance, that long-haul truck drivers earn more a year than full professors? yes, the average salary in 1977 for those truckers was $24,000, while the full professors managed to average just $23,930.

A PhD. is the highest degree you can get, but except in a few specialized fields such as physics or chemistry, where the degree can quickly be turned to industrial or commercial purposes, you are facing a dim future. There are more PhDs unemployed or underemployed in this country than in any other part of the world by far.

If you become a doctor of philosophy in English or history or anthropology or political science or languages or –worst of all –in philosophy, you run the risk of becoming overeducated for our national demands. Not for our needs, mind you, but for our demands.

Thousands of PhDs are selling shoes, driving cabs, waiting on tables and filling out fruitless applications month after month. And then maybe taking a job in some high school or backwater college that pays much less than the janitor earns.

You can equate the level of income with the level of education only so far. Far enough, that is, to make you useful to the gross national product, but not so far that nobody can turn much of a profit on you.

如果你要提高收入，他们就会建议你的孩子去“接受教育”，他们这时只说对了一半，他们的真实意思是接受足够的可以为社会提供劳力的教育就行了，可不要过度，否则只能在社会中困窘不堪。

至少应该获得高中文凭，否则你会没有工作，除非你碰巧是大名鼎鼎的乔治萧伯纳或是托马斯爱迪生，你才可以从中小学缀学并取得成功。

若可能的话，要得到大学文凭。拥有了大学文凭，你就像上了“发射台”。不过此时，你就应该“刹车”了。如果你想申请硕士学位，那就最好是一流大学的MBA。否则，再往后，著名的报酬递减规律就会起作用了。

举例来说，你知道长途运输司机的年收入就比正教授高吗？没错，那些卡车司机1977年的平均收入是24000美元，而正教授的收入平均是23930美元。

你能得到的最高学位是博士学位，可除非学习个别专业，诸如能把学识迅速应用于工商业的物理或化学专业，否则你的前途就很暗淡。到目前为止，这个国家失业或收入低的博士要比世界上其他地区多得多。

假如你成为一名研究英语、历史、人类学、政治、语言或最糟糕的哲学博士，你就有可能收到过度教育而超出国家的需要。提醒你，不要超出了我们自身的需求，而是超出了国家对我们的需求。

成千上万的博士或者买鞋、开出租车，或者月复一月地坐在桌旁填写一些无果的求职表格。也可能在一些中学或没有前途的大学当差，挣钱比看门人还要少得多。

你可以将收入的高低和受教育的高低对等起来，即接受能够为提高国民生产总值有点用处的教育就足够，而不要接受过多地教育，以至于没有人能够从你身上得到利润。

摘自：同等学力申请硕士学位英语阅读理解120篇，中国人民大学出版社