Final answer:
The second student's hourly rate is $3.
Step-by-step explanation:
In this scenario, the student writes the expression 3n + 15 to represent the amount of money she makes for n hours. To find the second student's hourly rate, we need to isolate the coefficient of n, which represents the hourly rate. We can do this by rewriting the expression in the form ax + b, where a is the hourly rate and b is any constant term. So, the expression 3n + 15 can be rewritten as 3n + 0(5), since 0 multiplied by anything is 0. Therefore, the second student's hourly rate is $3.