there are two types of assumptions: supporter and defender.

supporter: directly strengthens the conclusion.
All men like baseball games. Therefore, Jack likes baseball too.
supporter assumption: Jack is a man.

defender: protects the arguments by eliminating ideas that weaken the conclusion.
Jack is a lawyer and he is smart. Thus, studying law made Jack smart.
defender assumption: Jack was not smart before studying law

Conclusion: the average salary for all workers in Kravonia is likely to increase over the next four years
Possible reason of high pay: may be there are more jobs and less people who meet the requirement i.e. having a college degree.

C is also a defender assumption and is the right answer

another way to check assumption questions is to logically negate the answer and see if it weakens the conclusion.

Logical negative of C: the higher average salary for jobs requiring a college degree is due largely to a scarcity among the Kravonian workforce of people with a college degree.

the logical negative definitely weakens the conclusion and is the right answer
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C it is.

Cannot predict B as Akhil says. Negation on B doesn't invalidate the conclusion.

I am sure answer is C.

applying negation on C and the argument falls apart.
The higher average salary for jobs requiring a college degree IS LARGELY DUE TO a scarcity among the Kravonian workforce of people with a college degree. >> it provides a NEW factor for higher salary rather than the college degree.

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c for me 2.

I used the causal effect funda. Using the case, where A(degree) is the cause of B( higher salary) . This can be strenghthen based on the assumption that some other C (lack of degree applicants) is not the cause of B.
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C is saying that the author is assuming that the average salary for college graduates has been more for reasons other than their scarcity till now.
That is an assumption the author is making - if it were to be false, that is, if the larger salary was due to the fact that there was a scarcity of college graduated, then if more students have enrolled and will get degrees 4 years later, it might lead to enough graudates in the market and hence employers wouldnt have to pay more to get one!- Simple Demand - supply. In other words, if it is short supply of graduates in comparison to demand which is leading to them being paid higher, more graduates in market may lead to fillling of the demand gap and they might not be paid as highly.

I saw this question on the GMATPrep but it wasn't asking about assumption but for a strengthener. Thanks for this post.

My answer is C.

A. The issue is between non-college and college degree holders not more than one degree holder. Irrelevant.

B. This is pertaining to the reasons why people are going to college. The author needs not assume about their reasons. An increase in college degree holders whatever their actual reasons are should still lead to more college degree holders in the job market. Their reasons are irrelevant to the pull up of the average salary of the workforce. Irrelevant.

C. The author asserts that there will be a dramatic increase in college degree holders in the workforce and confidently affirms that the average salary will then go up due to these incoming workers with higher salaries. By negation, if the scarcity is the reason for higher salary and there are more available workers, the average salary will not go up as expected. This must be assumed by the author.

D. This is more of a trap. Even if their salary remain the same, the increase of incoming workers with higher pay will still pull up the average salary of the workforce. If it increase, the more likely the average salary will increase.

E. Degrees from outside countries - IRRELEVANT..