专业型研究生助学贷款配置:美国经验及其对中国的启示

Allocate Loans for Postgraduate Student in Professional Degree: Experience from the US and Implications for China

随着对高技能专业人才的需求的增加,当前中国的专业型研究生教育正处于快速发展时期。建立有效的财政资助体系将有助于促进其规模和质量的提升。从发达国家经验看,助学贷款是专业型研究生资助体系的重要构成部分。本文首先从理论上论证了专业型研究生采取成本分担与助学贷款政策的依据,并从成本和收益视角提出了贷款配置的基本原则。其次,研究以美国为例进行实证分析,所得结果与理论观点基本一致,有以下发现:(1)助学贷款在专业型研究生资助中所占比重较大;(2)联邦政府在专业型研究生贷款的发放和补贴中承担了主要角色;私人机构对专业型研究生贷款也相对学术型研究生更高;(3)贷款在配置时兼顾了专业型研究生教育的成本与收益因素。最后,本文结合理论及美国的实证结论,探讨专业型研究生贷款配置原则对中国的启示及其局限性。

As the demand for high skilled professional talents increased, professional degree in postgraduate education witnessed a rapid development in China recently. It is important to establish effective financial mechanism so as to widen access and improve quality of professional graduate education. According to the experience from developed countries, student loan plays an important role in financing professional graduate students. This study starts from a theoretical discussion on the rationality for adopting cost sharing and loan policy in professional postgraduate education, followed by several principles of allocating loans considering the cost and benefit of professional degree. The empirical study on the case in the US comes next and the results show consistency with the theoretical hypothesis. It is found that: (1) student loan accounts for a larger part in the financial aid package for professional graduate student; (2) government takes the primary responsibility in offering loan guarantees and subsidization for professional graduate student loan, and private institutions also provides more loans for graduate students in professional degree than those in academic degree; (3) both the cost and benefit of professional graduate education are considered when distributing loans. In the end, this paper discusses on the implications and limitations of these principles for China's professional postgraduate education based on the theoretical and empirical results on the US.