The following is part of a memorandum from the president of Humana University.
"Last year the number of students who enrolled in online degree programs offered by nearby Omni University increased by 50 percent. During the same year, Omni showed a significant decrease from prior years in expenditures for dormitory and classroom space, most likely because instruction in the online programs takes place via the Internet. In contrast, over the past three years, enrollment at Humana University has failed to grow, and the cost of maintaining buildings has increased along with our budget deficit. To address these problems, Humana University will begin immediately to create and actively promote online degree programs like those at Omni. We predict that instituting these online degree programs will help Humana both increase its total enrollment and solve its budget problems."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.
The memorandum from the president of Humana University advocates for the initiation and active promotion of online degree programs like those at nearby Omni University to reduce budget deficit. This recommendation is based on two reasons: increasing demand for online degrees and allowing for a decrease in facility maintenance costs. However, this line of reasoning requires further enquiries to ascertain the validity of the recommendation. The following are three assumptions that have to be addressed.
Firstly, there could have been other factors that led to the decrease in facility maintenance costs at Omni, not just higher online enrollment. Omni might have just completed a recent remodelling of its entire facilities recently. As such, given the prime condition of its facilities, it is able to reduce facility maintenance expenditure. On the other hand, Humana's facilities might be very old and will require a high maintenance costs regardless of the shift to online classes. Thus, the maintenance costs might not change significantly and the budget deficit issue will persist even with the shift to online degree programs.
Secondly, there is an implicit assumption that online degree popularity at Omni last year will translate to Humana. This might not hold true in all cases. The online enrollment spike at Omni might have been a one-off event resulting from an unprecedented event for example a pandemic like COVID-19, which prevents students from going to classes. In such cases, if the impact one-off event has attenuated, students might not be as willing to enroll for online courses. Further, it could also be that the most popular online degree programs were for courses like Data Analytics which Humana may not have the capability of offering. As such even if Humana introduces online degree programs, there may not be students who take up the program and Humana will not be able to generate higher revenue to cover its budget deficit.
Thirdly, the costs of introducing an online degree programs should also be taken into account. Humana might not have the existing infrastructure to provide such programs and might have to invest heavily in high tech infrastructures. In doing so, if the receptiveness of the programs is poor as highlighted above, the budget deficit situation might worsen as it spends more than what it can earn from introducing online degree programs. As such, a more careful look into the setup cost for online degree programs is critical in assessing whether the recommendation can indeed resolve the budget deficit.
To sum up, there are still various factors that Humana has to evaluate before making the final decision to commit to introducing and promoting online degree programs. Without evaluating these factors, Humana might end up in a worse position should my above scenario of lacklustre demand, high setup costs and limited impact on facility maintenance costs play out.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 468 350
No. of Characters: 2415 1500
No. of Different Words: 215 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.651 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.16 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.724 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 188 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.286 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.317 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.336 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.54 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.104 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 52, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'program'?
Suggestion: program
...e costs of introducing an online degree programs should also be taken into account. Huma...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, still, third, thirdly, thus, as to, for example, in all cases, to sum up, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.9520958084 170% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 18.0 28.8173652695 62% => OK
Preposition: 64.0 55.5748502994 115% => OK
Nominalization: 17.0 16.3942115768 104% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2472.0 2260.96107784 109% => OK
No of words: 468.0 441.139720559 106% => OK
Chars per words: 5.28205128205 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.65116196802 4.56307096286 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.79623062187 2.78398813304 100% => OK
Unique words: 225.0 204.123752495 110% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.480769230769 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 796.5 705.55239521 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 7.0 8.76447105788 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.3491609003 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.714285714 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.2857142857 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.57142857143 5.70786347227 133% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.242185644569 0.218282227539 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0771664810433 0.0743258471296 104% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0738969745539 0.0701772020484 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.137128429555 0.128457276422 107% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0729513921605 0.0628817314937 116% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.3799401198 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.64 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.84 8.32208582834 106% => OK
difficult_words: 122.0 98.500998004 124% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.