There are plenty of good reasons for a young person to choose to go to university: intellectual growth, career opportunities, having fun. Around half of school—leavers in the rich world now do so, and the share is rising in poorer countries, too.　　Governments are keen on higher education, seeing it as a means to increase social mobility and economic growth. But they tend to over estimate the benefits and ignore the costs of expanding university education. Often, public money just feeds the arms race for qualifications.　　As more young people seek degrees, the returns both to them and to governments are lower. Employers demand degrees for jobs that never required them in the past and have not become more demanding since. In a desperate attempt to stand out, students are studying even longer, and delaying work, to obtain master's degrees.　　Spending on universities is usually justified by the "graduate premium" — the increase in earnings that graduates enjoy over non—graduates. These individual gains, the thinking goes,add up to an economic increase for society as a whole. But the graduate premiumis a flawed unit of calculating. Part of the usefulness of a degree is that it gives a graduate job seeker an advantage at the expense of non—graduates. It isalso a signal to employers of general qualities, such as intelligence and diligence, that someone already has in order to get into a university. Some professions require qualifications. But a degree is not always the best measure of the skills and knowledge needed for a job. With degrees so common, recruiters are using them as a simple way to evaluate applicants. Non﹣graduates are thus increasingly locked out of nice work.　　In any case, the premium counts only the winners and not the losers. Across the rich world, a third of university students never graduate. It is the weakest students who are drawn in as higher education expands and who are most likely to drop out. They pay fees and sacrifice earnings to study, but see little increase in their future incomes. When dropouts are included, the expected financial return to starting a degree for the weakest students shrinks to almost nothing. Many school—leavers are being misled about the probable value of university. 　　Governments need to offer the young a wider range of options after school. They should start by rethinking their own hiring practices. Most insist on degrees for public—sector jobs that used to be done by non—graduates, including nursing, primary—school teaching and many civil﹣service posts. Instead they should seek other ways for non—graduates to prove they have the right skills and to get more on—the—job training.　　School—leavers should be given a wider variety of ways to gain job skills and to demonstrate their employ ability in the private sector. If school qualifications were made more strict, employers would be more likely to trust them as signals of ability, and less insistent on degrees. Universities should grant credits to dropouts for the parts of courses they have completed. They could also open their exams to anyone who wants to take them,and award degrees to those who succeed.　　Such measures would be more efficient at developing the skills that increase productivity and should save public money. To promote social mobility, governments would do better to direct funds to early—school education and to helping students who would benefit from university but cannot afford it. Young people, both rich and poor, are ill—served by the arms race in academic qualifications, in which each must study longer because that is what all the rest are doing. It is time to disarm. 1. How does the author consider higher education?　 　A.It's a good way to raise students' social status.B.It definitely benefits the development of economy.C.It will amply reward individuals and governments.D.It's a waste of money for some students and taxpayers.2. What does the underlined word "them" in paragraph 3 refer to?　 　A.Degrees.B.Returns.C.Employers.D.Jobs.3. What is the authors' preferred solution to the issue?　 　A.To decrease university drop-out rates.B.To improve the teaching qualities of universities.C.To open more public-sector jobs to non-graduates.D.To provide school-leavers with proper job training.4. What is the best title for the passage?　 　A.Measures to boost social mobilityB.Time to end the academic arms raceC.Difficulty in solving unemploymentD.Necessity of changing hiring practices