The director of a state agency believes that the average starting salary for clerical employees in QLD is greater than $50,000 per year. To test her hypothesis, she has collected a simple random sample of 100 starting clerical salaries across QLD and found that the sample mean is $53,000 per year. For this information, the alternative hypothesis can be stated as:

a. < 53,000

b. 53,000

c. > 50,000

d. 50,000