In a memo from the director of student housing at Buckingham College, the director recommends that the college “build a number of new dormitories” to better “serve the housing needs of our students.” The basis of his assertion revolves around three key pieces of corroboration — the increasing trend of enrolment, the average apartment rent in recent years, and lastly the prospect of drawing new students. While convincing at first glance, his argument requires scrupulous investigation of his key points to be deemed truly cogent.

In his first premise, he argues that “Buckingham’s enrolment is growing” and attempts to bolster his commentary by including the fact that he looked into “current trends”, which seemed to indicate that enrolment will double over the new 50 years. However, such trends can be put to shame with several points of contention. There is no clear distinction between current trends of Buckingham College and other colleges. For all the readers know, current trends could be college enrolment rates nationwide. Or in a different country. As such, circumstances cannot be totally comparable. Secondly, even if current trends “doubled over the next 50 years”, the director does not eliminate the possibility that dormitory space can be made to fit more students. Perhaps, a single room can be converted to a triple room. Without clearer guidanace on what he means by “inadequate” space and the enrolment statistics for Buckingham College specifically, his argument stands to be weakened by the above scenarios.

Following the assertion about enrolment trends, the director pulls in external factors. While such a move is estimable, the support given is not without flaws. In this particular sentence, he argues that “average rent for [their] town has risen in recent years.” However, there is no proof that average rent will continue to rise. There is a possibility that the bubble will soon burst or that demand will drop suddenly due to an influx of new apartments being build. In short, past trends cannot provide certain about future performance. In his follow-up to the point of average rent for apartments, he mentions the consequence: students will find it challenging to “afford off-campus housing.” While this seems logical, there is a possibility that students will choose to live at-home instead. Who is to say that another town over might have more affordable housing, and that the students who choose off-campus options don’t have cars? Needless to say, without evidence to eliminate such alternative reasons for housing options, the director’s main point falls flat.

Finally, he argues that including new housing will make “prospective students more likely to enrol at Buckingham.” Such a notion is laughable. There are so many reasons students attend a college. To not include specific qualitative feedback makes the director seem dense. There is a strong possibility that Buckingham College’s prospective students would enroll regardless of housing options, due to the college’s graduation rate or networking opportunities. The list of non-housing related benefits are endless. For the director to not point out such counterarguments makes his argument exceptionally weak.

In conclusion, the director’s assertion to build new dormitories — as it currently appears in this memo — is clearly flawed, as revealed by the points noted above. Without further corroboration, through the college’s specific enrollment records, and current and prospective student surveys on dormitory spaces and how it affects their school experience, his recommendation is nothing but pure sophistry at best.