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

The argument claims that building new dormitories is necessary when considering the growth in the number of students who enroll Buckingham. In addition, it states that new dormitories will increase the enrollment ratios of Buckingham. Stated in this way, the argument manipulates the facts and provides a distorted view of the situation. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumption for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.

First, the argument claims that the number of students will be doubled in the next fifty years and it is necessary to build new dormitories. This statement is stretched and not supported well. For example, the argument does not provide any source about how this data is obtained. In addition, fifty years is a long time span to predict. Hence, there is a considerable possibility of deviation and errors in predictions that is made for such a long term. In addition, even though the predictions will hold true, any dormitory that is build today will deteriorate and need maintanance in fifty years. Thus, focusing on short periods to decide the dormitory needs is more logical rather than considering such a long period. The argument would be much clearer if it explicitly presents statistics about short term demand for dormitories.

Second, the argument readily assumes that the increase in rents in town would direct the students to the dormitories. However, there is no survey or data that shows students’ preference for dormitories instead of apartment floors. In addition, there is a possibility that beside increase of rent, students’ income is also be increased due to positive trend in overall economy of the country. Hence, students might not be affected the increase in the rents as much as predicted by the board of university. If the argument had provided evidence that shows students would prefer dormitory rooms instead of an apartment floor, then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.

Finally, the argument claims that increasing number of dormitories would lead to increase in enrollment ratios. This is again very weak and unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between new dormitories and enrollment ratios. There are other criterias that are far more important than new dormitories that affect the students’ preference for universities. The money that would be used for dormitories might be spent for improving the quality of education or building new laboratories and they might increase the enrollment ratios more than a new dormitory. In order to support its claim the author should present reliable explanations that shows relation between new dormitories and increase in enrollment ratios. Without convincing explanations that present these relation, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened, if the author clearly mentioned all the relavant facts that justify the money spend on such a decision. In order to assess the merits of a certain decision,it is essential to have full knowledge of all contributing factors. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.