Size of high schools: The farm population has declined dramatically in the years since World War II, and with that decline, rural school districts have been faced with consolidating in order to be...

Size of high schools: The farm population has declined dramatically in the years since World War II, and with that decline, rural school districts have been faced with consolidating in order to be economically efficient. One researcher studied data from the early 1960s on expenditures for high schools ranging from 150 to 2400 in enrollment.34 He considered the cost per pupil as a function of the number of pupils enrolled in the high school, and he found the approximate formula

where n is the number of pupils enrolled and C is the cost, in dollars, per pupil.

a. Make a graph of C versus n.

b. What enrollment size gives a minimum per-pupil cost?

c. If a high school had an enrollment of 1200, how much in per-pupil cost would be saved by increasing enrollment to the optimal size found in part b?