Phoenix小组组员11号2010.2.11 argument

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The following appeared in a memorandum to faculty from the academic vice president of Waymarsh University.
"So that we can better accomplish Waymarsh University's academic goals, we should adopt the job-opportunity (job-op) program offered at Plateau Technical College and strongly encourage all students at Waymarsh to participate in it. The success of the job-op program at Plateau is evident: Over the past two years, more than 75% of the freshmen at Plateau have enrolled in the optional job-op program. Moreover, at Plateau, the grades of job-op students are consistently higher than those of other students, 90% of the job-op students receive job offers within a month after their graduation, and most former job-op students report much success in their careers."



The argument presented us with a proposition that if we want accomplish Waymarsh University’s academic goal, we should adopt the program offered at Plateau Technical College and encourage all students to participate in it. The author use details such as the higher marks and the successes for the students who had enrolled the program to prove its proposition. However, I found this proposition unreasonable in many ways.
The author mentioned that for the past two years, there is a high ratio of the freshman who joined this program. This means the all the statistics are at least two years old. We know that as time goes by, things change. What seems right and perfect in the days past might be inappropriate now. Moreover, the poll surveyed is just freshmen of Plateau Technical College. We therefore should not expect all the student including sophomore and senior will benefit from this program.
There are other plausible deductions. The author claimed that the grades of job-op student are consistently higher that those of other student. We should not deny there are possibilities that it is not the increasing grades of job-op student but decreasing grades of non job-op student that made this happen because when some student left for a program, other student will find the competition less fierce and will work less hard than before.
The author also said 90% of those job-op students receive their offer more quickly. This does necessarily mean that their job is good. Great possibilities are that what they have been trained are mostly about how to find a job easily and quickly. In the program, they learn job getting skills but the salary may not be very high which shows the disadvantage of this program.
Even if we admit that those fallacious reasoning does not exist. There is fundamental inaccuracy. All details the author mentioned are examples from a college that has nothing to do with Waymarsh University. Thus, we should not expect the same effect will occur in Waymarsh University. We know there are many differences between the two educational institutions. The college is more specialized while the university is more comprehensive. Their location may also be different. The program becomes less useful when Waymarsh University is located at isolated place. And the students are also different.
To sum up, the author’s statement is fallacious in many ways. Without further information, we can not get the conclusion that Waymarsh University should adopt the job-op program also. To get this conclusion, the author should provide details such as the difference and similarity between the two institutions, weather the student of higher grade benefit from the program etc.