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?

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.

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..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor