What products and services will Britain sell in the post-Brexit world? Car exporters fear for their futures outside the EU’s single market and customs union.
Financial institutions talk of pulling back to New York or moving to Frankfurt if they were to lose their passporting rights.
金融机构谈论如果它们失去通关权,就撤回到纽约或者转移到法兰克福。
Fortunately, Britain still has a world-leading export industry: higher education —
幸运的是,英国还有一个世界领先的出口产业:高等教育。
an appreciating asset when a quarter of the world’s population speaks English, millions more are learning and many want to study outside their home countries.
Amber Rudd, the home secretary, told the Conservative party conference that the government was considering a two-tier student visa system, making sure our world-leading institutions can attract the brightest and the best . . . while looking at tougher rules for students on lower-quality courses.
For those unfamiliar with the class structure of UK universities, there are two broad groups.
对于那些不熟悉英国大学课程结构的人而言,英国的院校分为两大类。
There are those that have always called themselves universities, including the Russell Group of top research institutions that boasts star performers such as Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College.
有一类一直以来都自称为大学,包括由顶尖研究型院校组成的罗素大学集团(Russell Group),其中有牛津(Oxford)、剑桥(Cambridge)和伦敦帝国理工学院(Imperial College London)等明星院校。
And there are those that used to be called polytechnics, but which have, since 1992, been allowed to call themselves universities too.
还有一些院校过去被称为理工学院,但在1992年以后,这些院校也被允许自称为大学。
It is their offerings that Ms Rudd appears to be referring to when she talks of lower-quality courses.
拉德在谈到质量较低的课程时,看起来指的就是这类院校的课程。
That the new universities are not up to much is an article of faith among many who have never studied, taught at or visited them.
许多从未在那里学习、授课或者造访的人的信条是这类新大学不怎么样。
(Although they are called new universities, many have been around for a long time.)
(尽管它们被称为新大学,很多院校已经创立了很长时间。)
Those who have had some contact with these institutions (I am married to a lecturer at one) know that while they have some below-par courses — just as some of the old universities do — the former polytechnics have their own strengths.
These include linking students with employers early on in their degrees.
比如能够在学位课程的早期就把学生与雇主联系起来。
Many of these courses support the economy of the future.
很多这些课程支持着未来的经济。
These institutions also ensure the leading faculty members do their fair share of teaching and provide extensive support to poorer students.
这些院校还确保最杰出的教师承担他们应该承担的教学工作,并为贫困学生提供广泛的支持。
If Mrs May is as keen as she says she is on every single person — regardless of their background, or that of their parents — [being] given the chance to be all they want to be, she should look after the institutions that do most to lift people up.
According to MillionPlus, the campaign group, two-thirds of their students come from lower-income households.
根据活动组织MillionPlus的数据,这些院校三分之二的学生都来自低收入家庭。
That social mobility the Conservatives talk about? Much of it happens at the new universities.
保守党说到社会流动性?很多社会流动就发生在这些新大学中。
Foreign students are crucial to their mission: 10 per cent of their undergraduates and 29 per cent of their postgraduates come from outside the UK.
外国学生对这些院校的使命非常重要:它们10%的本科生和29%的研究生来自英国以外。
Making it harder for these students to get visas (and universities say that the existing visa regime is already putting foreign students off) will imperil many of their courses, as well as the jobs of both academic and non-academic staff.
The new universities are not the only sector under attack.
新大学并非唯一一个受到冲击的行业。
The government also wants a stricter visa regime for those coming to the UK to learn English.
政府还希望对那些前往英国学习英语的人实施更严格的签证制度。
There have been some bogus language schools over the years, and the government has rightly shut many of them down.
多年来英国一直有一些冒牌的语言学校,政府关闭了其中的许多学校,这样做是正确的。
But there are plenty of decent ones.
但英国还有很多正规的语言学校。
According to a report commissioned by English UK, the language centres association, there are more than 550 accredited and inspected English language teaching centres in the UK, including private and state schools, further education colleges, universities and summer camps.
Of the more than 1.4m students learning English outside their home countries in 2014, more than a third came to the UK, spending £1.2bn on fees, accommodation and living costs.
Why is the government so oblivious to the damage that keeping these students out will cause? Because it insists on counting students as immigrants and is trying to bring immigration down.
Mrs May refused to take students out of the immigration statistics when she was home secretary and is unlikely to do so as prime minister, even though opinion polls show the majority of Britons do not see students as immigrants and are happy for them to come.