The arguer’s conclusion that Humana University should promote online degree program and thus solve its budget problems is untenable because it is based on unfounded evidence and weak reasoning. To better support his argument, the arguer should provide more information to answer the following questions.
The first question is: whether the statistics of Omni University’s online degree program enrollment is reliable or not? It is highly possible that because of its ill education quality, there are only a few students who would like to go to Omni University. In order to attract more students, the university deliberately reported a 50 percent increase in its online program, which seems to be a considerable rise. But in fact, maybe the number is less than 5 percent. Thus, we are not sure if the online program can help to increase the university’s total enrollment. Unless the author provides answer for this question, his reasoning cannot convince us.
The following question is that is there some other factors contributing to the decrease in expenditures of Omni University? Maybe a large number of students chose to rent a house rather than live in the school dormitory last year. Or maybe the university decided to enlarge the size of each class so that more students could share a classroom at a time, thus the expenditure on classroom space is lowered. In addition, the author only gives us statistics for one year, which seems unpersuasive. It is possible that this decrease is just a coincidence and will not happen again. Therefore, the author needs further explanation to bolster his conclusion.
Finally, even if the statics are precise and the online degree program helps Omni University reduce expenditures, we still doubt that will the program work well in Humana University? Maybe people there believe they can learn more in classrooms and cannot accept online education, so the program will not help increase the total enrollment. Or maybe the program work well in Omni University because the city is mountainous and the traffic is not so convenient, so people think it is an alternative to study online, thus we cannot simply apply the program to Humana University. Even if people accept the program, we cannot believe it will solve the budget problem. It is possible that there are still lots of students having classes in Humana University, and they have no awareness of protecting public buildings. As a result, the maintaining fee will keep high. Related answers are needed for this question to support the author’s claim.
To sum up, the argument is not cogent without answers for the above questions. To substantiate his recommendation, the arguer should carry out further research about people’s attitude towards the online degree program in this area.
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