seed wrote:
Quote:
A program instituted in a particular state allows parents to prepay their children’s future college tuition at current rates. The program then pays the tuition annually for the child at any of the state’s public colleges in which the child enrolls. Parents should participate in the program as a means of decreasing the cost for their children’s college education.
Which of the following, if true, is the most appropriate reason for parents not to participate in the program?
(A) The parents are unsure about which pubic college in the state the child will attend.
(B) The amount of money accumulated by putting the prepayment funds in an interest-bearing account today will be greater than the total cost of tuition for any of the pubic colleges when the child enrolls.
(C) The annual cost of tuition at the state’s pubic colleges is expected to increase at a faster rate than the annual increase in the cost of living.
(D) Some of the state’s public colleges are contemplating large increases in tuition next year.
(E) The prepayment plan would not cover the cost of room and board at any of the state’s public colleges.
GMATNinjapls help me to eliminate option (E).
How can we assume that "tuition fee" includes "room & board charges"? If these two are separate fees then it will be one of the reason for Parents to not invest, right?
This question is tempting us to overthink what we've read, so let's focus on being ridiculously precise with the exact language in the passage.
The author concludes that parents should participate in the prepayment program as a means of decreasing the cost of their children's college education. The prepayment program accepts payments for
tuition at current rates. Tuition,
by definition, is a fee charged for academic instruction. As you've noted, tuition does not include room and board. They are separate fees.
This is not an assumption by the author, because this separation already exists in the definitions of these words. This also means that Choice (E) isn't adding any new information, and doesn't have any logical impact on the author's conclusion about
savings on tuition. If (E) is true, the prepayment plan works exactly the same way, and paying tuition at current rates is just as likely (or unlikely) to result in a decrease in the overall cost of college education for these students.
In other words, the parents will have to pay for room and board
regardless of whether they use the prepayment plan. We are only interested in whether parents will save money on
tuition by utilizing the prepayment plan.
Because (E) doesn't change our evaluation of the prepayment plan, it is not an appropriate reason for parents to not participate. So we eliminate this choice and go for choice (B), which directly addresses how current prepayment funds could be better used to make college
tuition more affordable in the future.
I hope this helps!