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.

The solutions says b, and I can see that b is of assumption type "eliminates alternative cause." However, "fraudulent practices" turned me off when I was going through the ACs and I didn't even bother reading the rest, assuming that b was irrelevant. C seems like a more attractive answer, just because it is closer to the conclusion: "for-profit colleges enroll a greater proportion of financially disadvantaged students." If c were true, then we could validate the conclusion because we already know that for-profit colleges enroll a fewer number of students total (higher number of students with financial aid to number of students enrolled equates to higher proportion?)

I'd really appreciate any help in clarifying this! :)

Good questions! Let's start with B. Like you said, B eliminates an alternate cause of why the for-profit colleges might be getting a disproportionate share of aid. NEVER eliminate an answer before you read it in its entirety; think about how that particular answer impacts the argument. In this case, it helps us reach the conclusion that the for-profits are in fact enrolling a greater proportion of people who need the aid.

With C, beware! The argument says that for-profits draw a "disproportionate share", meaning that they get a higher percent of the money than their representation in the college world. So if for-profits are 10% of colleges, maybe they get 11% of aid money. That would be disproportionate. C talks about REAL NUMBERS of STUDENTS, a crucial distinction. Do we really need to know that the number of students receiving the aid is higher?

The GMAT plays this trick over and over--they give you a percent or proportion in the question then talk about actual numbers in the answer choices. Be very suspicious when you see this on the GMAT because these are almost always wrong.

_________________
Jamie Nelson
ManhattanGMAT Instructor