The following appeared in a letter from the faculty committee to the president of Seatown University:A study conducted at nearby Oceania University showed that faculty retention is higher when professors are offered free tuition at the university for thei

The argument of the whole passage is that as a resent study indicated that faculty retention at Oceania University is higher when their college- aged students are offered free tuition at the same university, the same model should also be applicable to nearby Seatown University.

Before judging whether the argument is sound or not, lets first take a look at the assumptions that prompted the faculty committee of Seatown University to reach such a decision. Based on the evidence, the argument may be bolstered or severely weakened.

One of the clear result is that this model has resulted in higher faculty retention in nearby Oceania University. But we do not know the details regarding the nature of this study. Were the professors surveyed representative of the population? What techniques were used in the study? An normalised approach would give the best results in such a study. How many of the professors had children that were of college going age? And lastly, what were the number of such children? There are too many questions regarding the survey which happened at Oceania University. Still if I consider the survey correct and representative of its professors, still the possibility implementation of the stated policy raises some interesting questions.

The first and foremost among those are the environment and infrastructure of Seatown University and Oceania University comparable? Say Oceania University has a large percentage of professors who have college-aged children compared to Seatown University. Then this decision will not be much fruitful if applied to Seatown University.

There is another interesting point to be considered. We do not know if there are only the above two colleges in the neighborhood or also some more famous universities in the locality. If a college- going child of a certain orofessor in Seatown University gets an admit from the more famous universities, chances are that he might possibly end up there. To make my point stronger, if that student receives a full-time or even partial scholarship, he might choose that university over Seatown University.

Thus everything depends on the circumstances and the assumptions. The policy of offering free tuition to the college going children of the professors will not necessarily result in faculty retention, but rather if a study in conducted in Seatown University about if the professors and their children are interested in the policy, then that policy will definitely be a