A confusing comparison

[HanzZ]

Hello Ron,

I encountered a confusing comparison in #85 in the blue OG verbal review (i.e. 2nd edition). For copyright reason, I will rewrite the sentence here:

Universities in Boston are providing career training for nearly 50 thousand people, as many as are enrolled in the city's high schools.

I watched your study hall on parallelism and understand how to look for parallel elements on both side of the parallel marker (as many as). However, it seems that the method doesn't work here.

As a result, I am confused as to what is the comparison here, between people or between numbers:
Between people: ...50 thousand people, as many as (people who) are enrolled in the city's high schools.
Between numbers: ...50 thousand people, as many as (the number of people who) are enrolled in the city's high schools.

It looks like this problem involves ellipse. However, my understanding is that you cannot leave out something that hasn't appeared in the sentence before.

Could you please help me understand this phenomenon here?

Thank you very much!

[RonPurewal]

Try this thread:
quantity-comparison-with-appositive-t22422.html

There are some comparisons that don't fit the "perfectly parallel" model; this is one of them. (There are others, too"”for instance, The highway is wide enough not to become backed up if there is more traffic than usual.)

If you have further questions, please post them on that thread, not here.