For-profit colleges serve far fewer students than...

[Inception]

For-profit colleges serve far fewer students than either public or private non-profit colleges. At the same time, relative to non-profit colleges, for-profit colleges draw a disproportionate share of federal and state financial aid, such as tuition grants and guaranteed loans, for their students. It must be, then, that for-profit colleges enroll a greater proportion of financially disadvantaged students than do non-profit colleges.

The conclusion above depends on which of the following assumptions?

A. Public non-profit colleges and private non-profit colleges enroll a similar proportion of financially disadvantaged students.

B. For-profit colleges do not engage in fraudulent practices in helping their students obtain unneeded federal and state financial aid.

C. The number of students receiving federal and state financial aid at for-profit colleges is greater than the number of students receiving federal and state financial aid at non-profit colleges.

D. For-profit colleges are of similar educational quality as non-profit colleges.

E. The majority of students at for-profit colleges do not default on repayment of their loans after they complete college.

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I had a lot of trouble with this question. The word "disproportionate" is defined as "Too large or too small in comparison with something else." So this word was immediately ambiguous and I couldn't conclude whether it meant that for-profit colleges were receiving high or low amounts of financial aid (even though one would think it is easy to naturally ASSUME it meant high). Without an indication if it was a "disproportionately high" or "disproportionately low" share, I naturally thought the question was asking us then, to see which of the below answer choices would allow me to determine if it was high or low.

Due to the ambiguity, I ended up selecting C, and I will explain why. IF C were indeed true (the # of students with financial aid at for-profit colleges > # students with financial aid at non-profit colleges), THEN the argument's conclusion rings true; yes, for-profit colleges would indeed have a higher proportion of $-disadvantages students due to the fact that for-profit colleges serve less students than non-profit colleges.

I did not select B (MGMAT's correct answer) because it tells me nothing as to whether the for-profit colleges' share is disproportionately high or low.

Would you agree that this question is ambiguous?

[shah.abhilash]

i am not convinced that the answer is B. i would have gone with E since that option seems to destroy argument.

The students are not require d to replay their loans. If they .did require to repay loans there was no need to for for-profit colleges to have disappropriate financial aid.

Please let me know the confirmed ans.

[tim]

when you see "disproportionate" on a question like this, you should think of it as "more than the average share". in fact, that is pretty much the default interpretation you should use in real life unless the word is qualified to indicate a lower share rather than a higher share..

E has nothing to do with destroying the argument. in fact, it is so irrelevant to what the argument is actually about that it should be immediately eliminated. B on the other hand gives you an assumption that, if false, would harm the argument. that's what you should be looking for on assumptions questions where you are asked which assumption the argument depends on..

BTW financial aid does NOT always imply money that needn't be paid back. most financial aid comes in the form of loans, in fact..

[pawanugt]

Is either of the below Unidiomatic ?

Disproportionate With / Disproportionate To ?

[tim]

"disproportionate with" is wrong..

[harika.apu]

when you see "disproportionate" on a question like this, you should think of it as "more than the average share". in fact, that is pretty much the default interpretation you should use in real life unless the word is qualified to indicate a lower share rather than a higher share..

E has nothing to do with destroying the argument. in fact, it is so irrelevant to what the argument is actually about that it should be immediately eliminated. B on the other hand gives you an assumption that, if false, would harm the argument. that's what you should be looking for on assumptions questions where you are asked which assumption the argument depends on..

BTW financial aid does NOT always imply money that needn't be paid back. most financial aid comes in the form of loans, in fact..

Hello Tim,
I understand answer is B . But i don't understand how C is wrong.
If for-profit server very less number and still draw a disproportionate share of total aid available to all colleges(for-profit and non-profit).
why do they don't serve more students if they are receiving more.

Thanks

[BrianC142]

The reason I chose C is due to the following:

We already know that for-profit schools draw a higher share of the overall financial aid available, which means that their absolute dollar amount is higher than either public or non-profit colleges. However we cannot assume that more disadvantaged students are enrolled in for-profit schools. Perhaps the average funding received by a disadvantaged students from for-profit schools is higher than a public or non-profit.

If the number of students receiving federal and state financial aid at for-profit colleges is higher than non-profit colleges, then we can assume that not only does for-profit schools draw more funding, but they service more disadvantaged students as well.

If the number of students receiving federal and state financial aid at for-profit college is not higher than non-profit colleges, then the for-profit schools may be providing more funding per disadvantaged student, thus weakening the idea that for-profit colleges enrolls more disadvantaged students.

[RonPurewal]

i think you might be fundamentally approaching this problem in the wrong way. it looks like you're starting from the answer choices, and seeing whether they strengthen or weaken the argument—which isn't the task here.

this problem asks for an assumption. in other words, you need to find something that's NECESSARY for this argument to work -- and that DESTROYS the argument if it's FALSE.

choice C is very clearly not NECESSARY.
in fact -- given the very first fact in the passage (for-profit schools enroll far fewer students, total) -- this statement is almost certainly false. (note that this statement is about NUMBERS, NOT proportions/percentages, of students. given that for-profit schools enroll "far fewer students", it's likely that they have smaller NUMBERS of EVERYTHING.)
...so, of course this statement isn't necessary to the argument. (to be relevant to this argument, any quantitative statement of this kind would need to be expressed in terms of percentages/proportions.)

[RaffaeleM39]

Hi,

"For-profit colleges serve far fewer students than either public or private non-profit colleges." and, at the same time, "relative to non-profit colleges, for-profit colleges draw a disproportionate share of federal and state financial aid".

Let's make an example.

For-profit college: 100 students
Public college: 1k students

For-profit college aid: 1k$
Public college aid: 100$

It follows that:

For-profit college aid per student: 1k$/100 = 10 $/student
Public college aid per student: 100$ /1k = 0.1 $/student

That is, the aid per student in for-profit college is higher than the aid per student in non-profit college.

This may be because the for-profit college is frauding the State (answer B), or because the for-profit college costs more, it has higher tuition than non-profit college, so the aid must be higher.
This is a reasonable assumption: for-profit colleges need to make a profit, while non-profit college has zero profit.
One way to make a profit is to have higher revenues, which for a college means higher tuitions.
It is unlikely that the for-profit college is hiring professor of lower quality, paying them less.

So, the aid is higher because, most likely, the tuition is higher.
if answer D is true ("the rates of default on loan repayments among graduates of for-profit and non-profit colleges") this would strengthen this assumption. A loan of a high amount is more difficult to pay back than a loan of a lower amount.

If the rate of defaults on the loans is greater for for-profit graduates than for non-profit graduates, the author conclusion would be weakened: the for-profit college does not have a higher proportion of poor student, it just has higher tuition fees.

If, on the other hand, the rate of defaults on the loan is the same, the author conclusion would be strengthened: it is likely that the loans are for the same amount and the same interest rate, so the prospective graduate students in for-profit are either richer (so they ask for a loan which is, in proportion to the tuition fee, less), or the tuition fees are more or less the same, thus making it more likely (but not necessary true) that the college has more poor students.

What is wrong with my reasoning?

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I think your question may be related to another problem, not this one. Please be aware that we sometimes use the same argument for multiple questions. Please make a new thread and post the whole problem.

[RaffaeleM39]

Yes, the argument was the same but the question was different. I have opened another thread.

Thank you very much.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

[Harshit Rajendra PrasadD216]

I chose option D assuming that if quality of education is very good at for profit schools then its not necessary that for profit schools have disproportionate no. of financial disadvantaged students. Can someone pl correct me . In manhattan answer only a line answer is mentioned. Can someone pl elaborate. tution grants can certainly be linked with quality of education.

[Chelsey Cooley]

I chose option D assuming that if quality of education is very good at for profit schools then its not necessary that for profit schools have disproportionate no. of financial disadvantaged students. Can someone pl correct me . In manhattan answer only a line answer is mentioned. Can someone pl elaborate. tution grants can certainly be linked with quality of education.

The argument concludes that for-profit colleges have more financially disadvantaged students than non-profit colleges.

The evidence for this claim is that for-profit colleges get more financial aid than non-profit colleges.

So, the conclusion is trying to give an explanation for the evidence. It's weird that for-profit colleges get so much more financial aid; one supposed explanation is that they have poorer students.

If (D) is an assumption, then negating it will mean that this explanation no longer makes sense. Suppose that we negate (D) - then maybe the quality of education at for profit schools is very good. That might explain why more students go there, or it might explain why different students go there; it could explain a lot of things. However, it doesn't explain why for-profit colleges get more financial aid than non-profit colleges. (If you think it does explain that, can you elaborate on specifically why/how?) The original explanation (that for-profit college students are poorer) still makes the most sense.

So, negating the assumption doesn't hurt the argument - so it's not really an assumption.