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【学生们在参加完印度理工学院的入学考试后离开】

（注：本文转载自《华尔街日报》，原标题为《中国大学能打败美国大学吗？》，英文原文见后）

印度最好的工程学府之一印度理工学院(Indian Institute of Technology)的德里分校，我们见到了21岁的施拉姆(Shriram)。他在48.5万名参加了该校入学考试的考生中，排名第十九位。我们管他叫第十九先生。这所学院的入学考试对考生要求极高。

施拉姆能告诉你他得知自己考试结果的具体日期和时间。这个考试，以及为之所做的准备，几乎是他青少年时期生活的全部内容。他在很小时就因为在数学和科学方面独具天赋而作为“大天才”被挑选出来。为了备考印度理工学院的入学考试，他报名参加了一个私人培训机构，这家机构专为学生进行备考前的强化训练，训练内容包括物理、化学和数学这些主要的考试科目。按照施拉姆自己的估算，那两年里，他每周学习90个小时。

来到印度理工学院后，施拉姆发现班里都是学习尖子。老师们则对学生寄予着厚望。在第一次数学考试中，他这个一年级班级同学的平均成绩是30%。施拉姆也考得很差，不过很快成绩就升上去了，为此他牺牲掉了部分睡眠，以便能够多些时间用来学习。他说，“长这么大，我最大的愿望就是到这里来。我知道如果我能够进入印度理工学院，学习工程学专业，努力工作，努力学习，那么我们的一生将会完美无憾。我将娶一个漂亮的女孩儿，开一家公司，帮助我的国家发展，实现家族的希望和梦想。”

印度和中国都有竞争激烈的全国统考制度，通过考试帮助国内的顶尖大学选出最聪明的学生。其竞争之激烈、准备过程之艰苦、举国上下对考试结果之焦虑，无不让美国的大学本科入学考试SAT看起来如同儿戏一般。在中国和印度，押在考试成败之上的筹码要沉重得多。那些考入前1%的幸运儿们有机会进入自己选择的大学，未来职业之路从此被引入了快车道，将有更高的收入，并将开始享受中上层阶层的生活。

对于剩下的99%考生而言，统考制度带来的结果并不怎么样。在中国和印度有近4,000万名大学生。大多数人就读的学校只是在以低成本大批量地制造着毕业生而已。学生们抱怨他们所接受的教育如同工厂炮制一般，枯燥乏味。用人单位也是叫苦连天，称许多毕业生需要先重新参加培训，之后方能完全胜任自己的工作。

目前来看，美国的大学体制仍是远远领先。不过再过十年，全球在下一代的教育方面，将有一争，中国和印度有潜力改变当前的力量均衡。随着大量适龄学生即将进入大学求学阶段，这两个国家已经将改革本国大学列为重中之重的首要任务。

中国和印度还有多长的路要走？在波士顿咨询公司(Boston Consulting Group，简称BCG)，我们开发了一套新的排名系统，对各国的教育竞争力进行比较，我们称之为BCG E4指数。这套排名基于四个E：Expenditure（开支，即政府和家庭用于教育方面的投入水平）；enrollment（人数，即在校就读的学生人数）；engineers（工程设计人才，即进入就业大军的合格工程设计人才数量）；elite institution（精英学府，即在全球高等教育院校中名列前茅的学校数量）。

美国和英国分列第一和第二位，主要因其教育开支较高，且在全球排名靠前的大学以及工程类院校数量多。中国排名第三，印度是第五，主要是因在校就读人数多（排在第四位的是德国）。美国独占鳌头的原因很明显：其一，美国用在教育上的花费最高，每年的教育开支达9,800亿美元，是中国的两倍，印度的五倍。美国还是生产工程设计人才密度最大的国家，每一百万名居民中就有981个工程专业毕业生，而中国和印度分别是553个和197个。

目前整体而言，美国大学在给学生提供就业准备方面，做得最好。世界经济论坛(World Economic Forum)预计，美国81%的工程专业毕业生可以立刻胜任工作，而只有25%的印度毕业生做得到这一点，中国的这个比例是10%。中国某大学的系主任对我们说,“中国学生能够照猫画虎地解决一个问题，但一旦需要独创的思维和自己的发明创造时，我们就没辙了。我们正在非常努力地弥补这个不足，我们正努力让我们的理工科教育成为解决问题的基础。”

在中国，成立于1898年的北京大学(Peking University)整体实力在国内名列前茅。一位北大的学生以极其严肃的口吻告诉我们，“要能在图书馆占到位子那你运气够好。哪怕是凌晨三点，你在那里都找不到空位。”

目前，北京大学是中国的九校联盟之一，九校联盟是中国借鉴美国常青藤盟校模式、于2009年建立的学校联盟。其目的在于通过九大资金雄厚之院校的合作，吸引到最好的学生和教师。最近，这些院校每家从政府那里得到了2.7亿美元的资金，他们还在吸引“海归”（即那些在海外拿到博士学位的中国学子）回来领导这场中国的文艺复兴，给海归的回迁红包高达15万美元。

尽管这九大院校最有实力闯入全球精英院校之列，不过中国政府还选出了一百家主要大学院校作为第二梯队，政府为这批院校投入了总计28亿美元的资金。

这两批院校在校生之间的差距通常并不十分明显。每年参加中国教育系统全国性高考的高中学生有1,000万人，高考决定了他们的排名以及能够进入哪所大学。高考状元们都成了全国皆知的明星。不过，批评者们认为，高考过于强调记忆能力，依靠对事实的死记硬背以及考生的反应速度就能决定是否可以被大学录取，这未免过于武断。有个最近高中毕业的考生告诉我们，“高考那天我感觉不太舒服，结果我的排名在前10%，不是很好，进不去九校联盟。我感觉好像生命就此完结了似的。”

与中国相比，印度未来要走的路更长。印度理工学院德里分校一位资深系主任说，他每天要面对的事情就是去处理设备短缺、教师的薪酬过低以及学生指标问题，有些时候一些不会说英文或是读懂英文的学生会凭借指标进入大学（这个指标旨在弥补印度种姓制度所造成的后果）。他在自己那间敞着门的酷热办公室里抱怨道，“我们资金不足，教师队伍中拿博士学位的人太少，而我们的入学人数有五分之一被指标生占据了，对此也没有任何补救措施。”

印度大学资金不足的一个原因在于，印度中央政府拿出来的教育经费相对较少，只占教育总开支的15%。印度28个邦的教育开支则因富庶程度和基础设施情况而异，悬殊很大。不过，同中国不一样，印度的私立教育系统很发达，私立学校有近20万家，还有1.7万所私立大学。世界银行(World Bank)和私人投资者正源源不断地将数十亿美元投入印度的教育领域，而印度政府也计划进一步发展壮大印度最知名的综合性大学以及社区院校。当前这个五年计划中建议将教育领域的投资提高到180多亿美元。

不过，即便是加上目前所做的这些努力，中国和印度用于高等教育的资源合在一起也不过是勉强达到了320亿美元──这是哈佛大学(Harvard)一所学校就能筹集到的资金水平【博主注：350亿美元为哈佛大学累积的校友募捐基金，该基金每年进入资本运作，所获投资收益用于哈佛运营经费和奖学金】。不过在中国和印度这些国家，就成功的基础而言，重要的不只是资金，还有态度。印度理工学院那位第十九先生代表了发愤图强、天资聪慧且有意改善自己生活状态的一代学生。在北京大学一间学生宿舍，贴着的励志箴言反映出了这一代学子上进的决心：“只要功夫深，铁杵磨成针。”

Can U.S. Universities Stay on Top?

India and China are still far behind in elite education, but they are scrambling to catch up

At the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi—one of the best engineering academies in the country—we met Shriram, a 21-year-old man who ranked 19 out of 485,000 on the school's very demanding entrance exam. We call him Mr. Number 19.

Shriram can tell you the date and time when he found out his test results. The exam—and the preparation for it—dominated his teenage years. He was singled out as a "big talent" at an early age, with an aptitude for mathematics and science. To get ready for the IIT entrance exam, he enrolled at a private coaching institute that prepares students with aggressive drilling in the major testing areas—physics, chemistry and math. Over those two years, Shriram estimates that he studied 90 hours every week.

When Shriram arrived at the IIT, he found a class filled with academic superstars. The faculty has high expectations. On the first math exam, his freshman class received an average grade of 30%. Shriram did poorly too but soon bounced back, sacrificing sleep so that he could study. "All my life I wanted to be here," he says. "I knew that if I could go to IIT, major in engineering, work and study hard, my life would be perfect. I would marry a beautiful girl, start a company, help my country advance and deliver on my family's hopes and dreams."

Both India and China have intense national testing programs to find the brightest students for their elite universities. The competition, the preparation and the national anxiety about the outcomes make the SAT testing programs in the U.S. seem like the minor leagues. The stakes are higher in China and India. The "chosen ones"—those who rank in the top 1%—get their choice of university, putting them on a path to fast-track careers, higher incomes and all the benefits of an upper-middle-class life.

The system doesn't work so well for the other 99%. There are nearly 40 million university students in China and India. Most attend institutions that churn out students at low cost. Students complain that their education is "factory style" and "uninspired." Employers complain that many graduates need remedial training before they are fully employable.

For now, the U.S. university system is still far ahead. But over the next decade, there will be a global competition to educate the next generation, and China and India have the potential to change the balance of power. With large pools of qualified students coming of age, the two countries have made reforming their universities a top priority.

How far do they have to go? At the Boston Consulting Group, we have developed a new ranking to determine the educational competitiveness of countries: the BCG E4 Index. It is based on four Es: Expenditure (the level of investment in education by government and private households); enrollment (the number of students in the educational system); engineers (the number of qualified engineers entering the workforce), and elite institutions (the number of top global higher-education institutions).

The U.S. and the U.K. are ranked first and second, driven by raw spending, their dominance in globally ranked universities and engineering graduation rates. China ranks third and India fifth, largely on enrollment (Germany is fourth). The reasons for U.S. supremacy are clear: For one, it spends the most money on education, disbursing $980 billion annually, or twice as much as China and five times as much as India. It is also the most engineer-intensive country, with 981 engineering degrees per million citizens, compared with 553 for China and 197 for India.

American universities currently do a better job overall at preparing students for the workforce. The World Economic Forum estimates that 81% of U.S. engineering graduates are immediately "employable," while only 25% of Indian graduates and 10% of Chinese graduates are equally well prepared. "Chinese students can swarm a problem," a dean at a major Chinese university told us. "But when it comes to original thought and invention, we stumble. We are trying hard to make that up. We are trying to make technical education the grounding from which we solve problems."

In China, Peking University, founded in 1898, is generally ranked as the country's top school. One student there told us in a very serious tone: "Good luck finding a place in the library. You can't find a seat even at three in the morning."

Peking University is now part of an effort launched in 2009 to create a Chinese counterpart to the Ivies—called the C9 League. The objective is to attract the best graduates and faculty with an array of super-funded institutions. The schools recently received $270 million each in government funding, and they are also drawing back "sea turtles"—Chinese Ph.D.s from abroad—to lead the renaissance, with relocation bonuses as high as $150,000.

Though the C9 schools have the greatest potential to break into the global elite, Chinese officials also identified 100 key universities at the next level, where they have invested a total of $2.8 billion.

The difference in student quality between these tiers is often insignificant. The Gaokao is China's national educational test, given to 10 million secondary students to determine their rank and placement at university. The top scorers become national celebrities. But critics say that the test's emphasis on memorization, fact recall and processing speed can determine college admissions too arbitrarily. "I did not feel well the day of the test," one recent graduate told us. "As a result I placed in the top 10%, not good enough to get into the C9. I felt like my life was over."

Compared with China, India has farther to go. A senior dean at IIT Delhi said that he deals daily with shortages of equipment, poor pay for teachers and quotas that sometimes put students who can't read or speak English in the classroom. (The quotas are meant as a remedy for the caste system.) "We are underfunded, we have too few Ph.D.s on faculty, and we have a fifth of our enrollment taken by quota with no remedial programs," he lamented in his hot, open office.

One of the reasons for the underfunding is the relative weakness of India's central government, which accounts for only 15% of total expenditure on education. The 28 states that account for the balance vary greatly by wealth and infrastructure. But unlike China, India has significant private education, with nearly 200,000 private schools and 17,000 private colleges. The World Bank and private investors are pouring billions of dollars into education there, and the government plans to expand its best-known universities, as well as community colleges. The current five-year plan proposes higher-education investments of more than $18 billion.

Even with the current push, the combined higher-education resources of India and China will just begin to match the $32 billion endowment of Harvard alone. But success in these countries is based as much on attitude as on funds. The IIT's Mr. Number 19 represents a generation of driven, talented students who are intent on improving their lives. In one student's room at Peking University, the commitment to advancement is summed up with a phrase on a poster board: "If you work hard enough, you can grind an iron rod into a needle."

—Mr. Silverstein is a senior partner at the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Singhi is a partner and director of its India consumer practice. Adapted from "The $10 Trillion Prize: Captivating the Newly Affluent in China and India," co-written with Carol Liao and David Michael, to be published on Oct. 2 by Harvard Business Review Press.

中美印三国在校学生人数及教育经费

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数据解读：美国2010年的教育经费是9800亿，中国是4800亿，中国在校生2.35亿，美国在校生6700万，中国在校生是美国近30倍（从小学到大学），但中国教育经费投入仅相当于美国一半。相当于2010年单个学生投入美国是14626美元，中国是2042美元，美国单个学生投入是中国的7倍。

Source: Boston Consulting Group analysis

A version of this article appeared September 29, 2012, on page C3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Can U.S. Universities Stay on Top?.

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