The following appeared in a memo written by a dean at Buckingham College."To serve the housing needs of our students, Buckingham College should build a new dormitory. Buckingham's enrollment is growing and, based on current trends, should double over the

The argument asserts that Buckingham College should build a number of new dormitories to serve the increasing housing needs of its students. This conclusion is based on premises that the current high rents of housing around the campus would make students find it difficult to afford off-campus housing, that building new dormitories would be the best solution to increasing housing needs, and that new dormitories would attract more students to the college. At first glance, this argument might seem persuasive, but closer scrutiny of the argument reveals that it lacks appropriate support or evidence and is thus problematic as it stands.

First of all, the speaker assumes that the current trends of rising rents for apartments around the campus would be sustained, and students would find it unaffordable to live off-campus. However, this is an extrapolation of the current situation to the future, which is obviously prone to error. Current high rent of housing around campus does not necessitate the upcoming market trend of high rent as well. Considering market is so volatile and whimsical, its current trend might not hold even in the near future. For instance, current increasing rent might be diminished in the future, and students might find it easier to afford the rent of off-campus apartments.

Secondarily, even if the rent is staying high in the future, building new dormitories might not be the best solution to the dormitory shortage problem and there might be other solutions with lower costs and better results. The memo suggests building dormitories as the only solution to the problem; however, it would not be the best solution considering some students who eager to live off-campus rather than dormitories. For students who opt to live off-campus even at the expense of high rent, it would be better to offer them housing subsidies to satisfy them. In addition, building a number of new dormitories cost tremendous amount of money and the college might want to spend its budget more on education rather than building commodities such as dormitories.

Lastly, the speaker assumes that new dormitories would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham College without any substantiated evidence. However, prospective college students might consider housing option as peripheral factor when choosing college they would attend. For them, the faculty of school, the quality of education, location, amount of tuition, or scholarship offering would be more important factors when determining the college. Thus, investing on those areas would be better for college to foster its and its students’ competitiveness overall rather than investing its budget on building new dorms.

In sum, the argument fails to address the possibilities of any of these situations. If any of this is true, it would severely weaken the premises of the argument. Without ruling out these possibilities, thus, the memo’s conclusion would be false. Therefore, to strengthen the argument, the argument should be substantiated with more detailed information on future rent market trend, prospective students’ need, and cost and benefit analysis of other options.