The following appeared in a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College."To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current

In this memo, the author recommends the Buckingham College to build a number of new dormitories in order to serve the housing needs for students. The editorial’s author further concludes that prospective students would be encouraged to enroll at Buckingham. Close scrutiny of the cited evidences in the argument reveals that they lend little creditable support to the author’s recommendation.

Firstly, the author assumes that building more dormitories would be necessary to obviate the housing needs, yet offers no evidence to substantiate this assumption. Indeed, it is rarely acceptable that building a number of new dormitories would suffice by itself, considering that no information regarding the number of the students, the number of current dormitories, and the exact rate of increase in Buckingham’s enrollment is provided in the argument. Perhaps, some retrofits on the current dormitories in order to accommodate more students would be required too. Or perhaps some minor retrofits on the current dormitories would suffice to obviate the students’ housing needs. In short, unless the author account for these and other plausible alternatives, the recommendation lacks any merit whatsoever.

Another compelling argument against the author’s recommendation has to do with fact that building more dormitories and providing superior housing for the students accomplishes nothing towards attracting more students to enroll at Buckingham. Actually, students, in my opinion, rarely choose a university based on the housing and the quality of dormitories. The writer of the argument overlooks other factors intriguing the students to enroll at Buckingham College. Maybe the students put more weight on world ranking of the college and its academic achievements. Alternatively, the students might decide to study at a university where eminent professors and erudite teachers are present. Unless the author provide evidence regarding the foregoing flaw in the line of reasoning, the conclusion is not convincing.

Finally, the author assumes that the average rent for an apartment in the town remains unchanged in the coming years, especially as the author cites statistics regarding the increasing rate of enrollment at Buckingham over the next 50 years, which is a considerable period of time. Yet, no evidence is provided in the argument substantiating that this trend would remain the same in the coming years. Absent such evidence, the author’s recommendation amounts to especially poor advice for the Buckingham College.

In sum, the argument is logically flawed, and hence unconvincing. To bolster the argument, the author must provide evidence regarding the average rent for an apartment in the town over the next 50 years. In addition, the author must explain whether building more dormitories would suffice by itself to solve the students’ housing problems. Finally, more information about the fact that adding more new dormitories would attract prospective students to enroll at Buckingham.