雅思阅读全真练习系列（十）

一、How Private Universities Could Help to Improve Public Ones

　　A.There are many rich Germans. In 2003 private assets are estimated to have been worth €5 trillion ($5.6 trillion)， half of which belongs to the richest tenth of the population. But with money comes stinginess， especially when it comes to giving to higher education. America devotes twice as much of its income to universities and colleges as Germany (2.6% of GDP， against 1.1%) mainly because of higher private spending—and bigger donations.

　　B.Next year's figures should be less embarrassing. In November Klaus Jacobs， a German-born billionaire living abroad， announced that he would donate €200m to the International University Bremen ( IUB )—the biggest such gift ever. It saved the IUB ， Germany's only fully fledged private and international university (with 30 programmes and 1，000 students from 86 countries) from bankruptcy. It may also soften the country's still rigid approach to higher education.

　　C.German higher education has long been almost entirely a state-run affair， not least because universities were meant to produce top civil servants. After 1945 the German states were put in charge， deciding on such details as examination and admission rules. Reforms in the 1970s made things worse by strengthening， in the name of democracy， a layer of bureaucracy in the form of committees of self-governance.

　　D.Tuition fees were scrapped in the name of access for all. But ever-rising student numbers then met ever-shrinking budgets， so the reforms backfired. Today the number of college drop-outs is among the highest in the rich world， making tertiary education an elite activity： only 22% of young Germans obtain a degree， compared with 31% in Britain and 39% in America. German universities come low in world rankings， so good students often go abroad.