University administrator: Graduate students incorrectly claim that teaching assistants should be considered universit...

Irina on October 21, 2019

@Ryan-Mahabir,

The administrator argues that TAs hold teaching positions only because they are pursuing degrees at the university or because they could not otherwise fund their education. The fact that university is looking to replace faculty with TAs for economic reasons suggests that TAs hold teaching positions not only due to these two factors, hence this fact weakens the administrator's argument (C).

(D) is incorrect because even if TAs earn stipends that exceed the cost of tuition it is still consistent with the fact that their teaching stipend helps them fund their education. The argument never tells us that "funding one's education" must exclude any other expenses beyond the cost of tuition, including room & board, fees, textbooks and so on.