The following is part of a memorandum from the president of Humana University.
"Last year the number of students who enrolled in online degree programs offered by nearby Omni University increased by 50 percent. During the same year, Omni showed a significant decrease from prior years in expenditures for dormitory and classroom space, most likely because online instruction takes place via the Internet. In contrast, over the past three years, enrollment at Humana University has failed to grow and the cost of maintaining buildings has increased. Thus, to increase enrollment and solve the problem of budget deficits at Humana University, we should initiate and actively promote online degree programs like those at Omni."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
Through a comparison with nearby Omni University, the president of Humana University argues that by initiating and promoting online degrees, Humana University could increase enrollment and better balance the books. She comes to this conclusion by contrasting the fall in expenditures at Omni University (which has seen a 50 percent increase in online enrollment) with the static enrollment and increasing maintainance costs of Humana University. The president's argument is plausible, but it relies on a number of assumptions that would need to be more closely examined for us to have confidence in her conclusion.
Broadly speaking, the president makes assumptions about the explanations for both the apparent recent success of Omni University, and the problems observed at Humana University. I will discuss these in turn.
The president makes the (stated) asumption that the reason for the decrease in Omni's dormitory and classroom expenditure is the increase in online instruction taking place via the Internet. Implicitly, this assumes that the fall in expenditure resulted from a reduction in 'foot fall' - there are fewer students using the dormitories and (physical) classrooms, so the costs arising from these has fallen, presumably because either fewer dormitories and classrooms are needed, or they are suffering less wear and tear. But there are other possible reasons for the reduction in costs. For example, Omni may have increased the efficiency with which these physical facilities are maintained. Perhaps they put cleaning and building contracts out to tender, and have been able to maintain the same facilities at lower cost. Alternatively, they may be saving money now by letting the facilities fall into disrepair - which is unlikely to be a policy that Humana would wish to replicate. If the reduction in dormitory and classroom costs is unrelated to the increase in online enrollment, then the president's argument would not be supported by the example of Omni University.
Turning to Humana University, the president makes unstated assumptions about the reasons for both the stagnant enrollment and the increased building costs. Over the past few years, enrollment at Humana has failed to grow, and the president assumes that this is related to a lack of growth in online enrollment. But we do not even know whether there has been lack of growth in online enrollment at Humana - this is merely assumed. Even if both online and physical enrollment have been stagnant, the president assumes that promotion of online degree programs would lead to an increase in enrollment. But this assumes that the lack of (or lack of awareness about) online programs is the reason for the stagnant enrollment. Instead, there may be other - deeper - reasons for Humana's lack of growth. For example, Humana's fees may be too high to attract applicants, or it may not have a good reputation for quality. These problems may not be solved by promoting online degrees, which would undermine the president's claim. Instead, competitive fees and/or improvements in quality may be more important for both online and physical enrollment.
The president also appears to assume that Humana's increasing maintainance cost is driven by there being too many physical students, and that increasing the proportion of online students would stem the rising expenditure. But - as with Omni's maintainance costs - there may be other factors more important than the number of physical students. Perhaps the buildings are not being maintained in the most efficient way, in which case efficiency savings may be able to keep costs down just as well as a shift to online instruction. Alternatively, the buildings could be old and intrinsically difficult to maintain, in which case investment in more modern infrastructure may lead to cost savings in the long wrong. These and other possibilities would undermine the president's assumed link between maintainance costs and online enrollment.
In short, the president assumes a causal link between the relative shares of online enrollment and the relative maintainance costs at Omni and Humana, as well as a causal link between Humana's stagnant enrollment numbers and its lack of online instruction. But there are other possible explanations for all of these phenomena which would need to be ruled out before we could accept the president's conclusion.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-03-07 | extragpu99 | 73 | view |
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- The following is part of a memorandum from the president of Humana University Last year the number of students who enrolled in online degree programs offered by nearby Omni University increased by 50 percent During the same year Omni showed a significant 72
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 28 15
No. of Words: 690 350
No. of Characters: 3608 1500
No. of Different Words: 253 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.125 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.229 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.858 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 270 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 208 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 165 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 118 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.643 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.146 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.714 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.155 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 449, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'presidents'' or 'president's'?
Suggestion: presidents'; president's
...ainance costs of Humana University. The presidents argument is plausible, but it relies on...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 1085, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'presidents'' or 'president's'?
Suggestion: presidents'; president's
...increase in online enrollment, then the presidents argument would not be supported by the ...
^^^^^^^^^^
Line 16, column 386, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'presidents'' or 'president's'?
Suggestion: presidents'; president's
...be ruled out before we could accept the presidents conclusion.
^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, may, so, then, well, broadly speaking, for example, in short, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 32.0 19.6327345309 163% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 24.0 12.9520958084 185% => OK
Conjunction : 33.0 11.1786427146 295% => Less conjunction wanted
Relative clauses : 17.0 13.6137724551 125% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 89.0 55.5748502994 160% => OK
Nominalization: 35.0 16.3942115768 213% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3693.0 2260.96107784 163% => OK
No of words: 689.0 441.139720559 156% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.35994194485 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.12335920045 4.56307096286 112% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.94487905361 2.78398813304 106% => OK
Unique words: 268.0 204.123752495 131% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.388969521045 0.468620217663 83% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1151.1 705.55239521 163% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 12.0 1.67365269461 717% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 28.0 19.7664670659 142% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.7705967403 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 131.892857143 119.503703932 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.6071428571 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.10714285714 5.70786347227 54% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 6.0 5.15768463074 116% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 17.0 8.20758483034 207% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.221541788298 0.218282227539 101% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0733244509165 0.0743258471296 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0686946286951 0.0701772020484 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.141187895896 0.128457276422 110% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0785910956666 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.1 14.3799401198 112% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.3550499002 80% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.197005988 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 14.1 12.5979740519 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.08 8.32208582834 97% => OK
difficult_words: 142.0 98.500998004 144% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 12.3882235529 121% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.9071856287 126% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.