Critical Reasoning

croman wrote:Wrong for me,why not E?
OG Answer is B

here's a simpler way of looking at the conclusion here: the passage is saying that parents will be better off financially by using the program than by not using the program.
that is all.

so, let's examine (b) and (e) in light of this new, distilled version of the conclusion:
let's say that the future cost of tuition is X dollars.

if (b) is true, then investing the money in the program will yield a benefit of X dollars when it's college time for the little ones; however, investing in a normal interest-bearing account will yield a benefit of MORE than X dollars. therefore, the parents are actually worse off using the program, so this is the correct answer.

(e) is irrelevant, because the fundamental premise of the argument - that the program turns less-than-X dollars into a benefit of X dollars, thus putting the parents in a better place financially - remains unchallenged. as the previous poster has noted, room and board has absolutely nothing to do with the argument, so invoking it doesn't weaken (or strengthen, for that matter) the argument.

what i'm wondering is why the correct answer isn't the much more obvious downside to the program, which is that the parents will be out an enormous chunk of change if they decide to send their kids anywhere but to their state's public colleges.