The master's degree business is booming. College graduates looking for a leg up in the job market are flocking to one- and two-year programs that promise entry to lucrative careers. Top colleges are more than willing to provide them — for a price. Tuition for a 30-credit master's in computer science from the University of Southern California runs $57,000. Syracuse, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon charge over $43,000 for the same degree.

But one highly ranked program, at Tech, has taken a very different approach. Its master's in computer science costs less than one-eighth as much as its most expensive rival — if you learn online. And a new study by Harvard economists found that in creating the program, Georgia Tech may have discovered a whole new market for higher education, one that could change the way we think about the problem of college costs.

碩士學位市場正興旺。想在就業市場有優勢的大學畢業生一窩蜂去修一年和兩年的碩士課程，這些課程保證可幫你展開高薪職業生涯。頂尖大學非常樂意提供這些課程－－可得付一大筆錢。南加州大學30個學分的電腦科學（資工）碩士課程，學費5萬7000美元。同樣學位，雪城大學、約翰霍普金斯大學和卡內基美隆大學收費都在4萬3000美元以上。

但喬治亞理工學院一個排名很高的課程，採取非常不同的做法。資訊科學的碩士學位花費不到收費最高競爭對手的1/8－－如果你在網上學習。而且哈佛大學經濟學家的一項新研究發現，喬治亞理工學院在開辦這項課程時，也許也發現了高等教育的一個全新市場，這個市場可能改變我們對大學學費問題的思維方式。

Georgia Tech rolled out its online master's in computer science in 2014. It already had a highly selective residential master’s program that cost about the same as those of competitor colleges. Some may see online learning as experimental or inferior, something associated with downmarket for-profit colleges. But the nation's best universities have fully embraced it. Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, USC and others have also developed online master's degrees, for which they charge the same tuition as their residential programs.

Georgia Tech decided to do something different. It charges online students the smallest amount necessary to cover its costs. That turned out to be $510 for a three-credit class. USC charges online students $5,535 for a three-credit class. (Both programs also charge small per-semester fees.)

喬治亞理工學院2014年推出網路教學的電腦科學碩士課程。該校原已有嚴選的在校碩士課程，收費與其他競爭大學差不多。有些人可能認為網路學習屬實驗性質，或者品質較差，只與想賺錢的次級大學有關。但美國最好的大學已完全擁抱網路教學。雪城、約翰霍普金斯、南加大和其他頂尖大學也都推出了網路教學碩士學位課程，所收學費與在校學程相同。

喬治亞理工學院決定做點不一樣的。對網路學生只收最低成本費。結果一門3學分的課是510美元。南加大一門3學分課程向網路學生收費5535美元。（兩個碩士課程都只收很少的學期雜費。）

With one of the top 10 computer science departments in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report, Georgia Tech had a reputation to uphold. So it made the online program as much like the residential program as possible.

根據「美國新聞與世界報導」的排名，喬治亞理工學院的電腦科學系在全美排在前十大，可不能砸了招牌，因此該校把網路教學課程盡量安排得與在校課程一樣。

As school started at Stony Brook University this month, two freshmen, Juan Adames and John Taveras, set out to buy textbooks.

They had not heard yet that the bookstore was a books store no more.

This summer, Stony Brook, part of the State University of New York, announced a partnership with the online retailer Amazon, now the university’s official book retailer. Students can purchase texts through a Stony Brook-specific Amazon page and have them delivered to campus.

本月石溪大學開學時，兩名大一新生，胡安．阿達梅斯和約翰．塔維拉斯出門購買教科書。

他們尚未聽說，書局已經不再是擺圖書的商店。

今年夏天，紐約州立大學之一的石溪大學，宣布與網路零售商亞馬遜合作，現在亞馬遜是石溪大學的官方圖書零售商。學生可從亞馬遜的石溪專用網頁購買教科書並要求送到校園。

In the campus store where the textbooks used to be, there are now adult coloring books, racks of university-branded polos and windbreakers and three narrow bookshelves displaying assorted novels. The rest of the store is a vibrant collage of spirit wear and school supplies: backpacks and baseball caps; pompom hats and striped scarves; notebooks and correction fluid. There will soon be a Starbucks.

“I was a bit thrown off by the appearance,” Adames said.

校園商店曾是教科書所在的地方，現在只有成人著色書，數個架子的大學品牌polo衫和風衣及展示各類小說的3個窄書架。店內其他部分是運動服和學校用品組成的一幅活力四射的拼貼：背包、棒球帽；小毛球帽和條紋圍巾；筆記本和修正液。不久，會有一家星巴克。

阿達梅斯：「我有點被它的擺設搞糊塗了。」

It is a conversation occurring on campuses across the country: If more and more students are buying and renting their course books online, why do they need a bookstore?

The Queens College bookstore went digital in April, forgoing brick-and-mortar altogether, Adam L. Rockman, the vice president of student affairs, said. Students order their books online, then have them shipped to personal addresses or to campus, where they are held until students pick them up.

“There are certainly some growing pains in getting used to it for many students,” Rockman said. “I think the human condition is not to really love change.”

下面這句話可在全美各地的校園聽到：如果從網路購買和租用課本的學生越來越多，還要書局做啥？

皇后學院書店今年四月開始數位化，完全捨棄實體店，副學生事務長裁亞當．洛克曼說。學生網購書籍後，可要求送到個人地址或校園，留在那兒等學生來領取。

洛克曼說：「當然，對許多學生而言，習慣這種方式，仍是有初期的適應問題。我想人類的狀況是，並不真的喜歡改變。」

The shift at Stony Brook is an attempt to provide more affordable options to students, according to Peter Baigent, the university’s vice president for student affairs. Amazon is “more of a marketplace,” where students can comparison shop, he said, as opposed to a conventional, fixed-price store. Eventually, students will be able to order texts for delivery to an Amazon area, which is still under construction, and pick them up from storage lockers.

Ripley MacDonald, director of Amazon Student Programs, said the company was also the primary course materials provider for Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

石溪分校的副學生事務長彼得．貝金特表示，該校的轉變是為了提供更負擔得起的選擇給學生。亞馬遜「更像個市場」，他說，學生可貨比三家，不同於傳統的固定價格商店。最後，學生可訂購書本，送貨到仍在建造的一個亞馬遜區，再從儲物櫃取走書籍。

亞馬遜學生計畫負責人雷里普利．麥唐納說，該公司也是印第安納州西拉法葉市的普度大學，以及阿姆赫斯特市麻州大學主要的課程材料供應商。