ARGUMENT240 [Victors小组]7月10日作业 by jennetrj

jennetrjUID: 2275453

ARGUMENT240 - 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 next fifty years, thus making existing dormitories inadequate. Moreover, the average rent for an apartment in our town has increased in recent years. Consequently, students will find it increasingly difficult to afford off-campus housing. Finally, an attractive new dormitory would make prospective students more likely to enroll at Buckingham."
WORDS: 546          TIME: 00:30:00         

In this memo, the author recommends Buckingham College to build a new dormitory to serve the housing need of the students. To justify this recommendation, the author points out that student enrollment of the college is growing these years and an attractive new dormitory would make the prospective student pool enlarged. Moreover, the author claims that rent of apartment in the town increased currently which engenders students' more difficulty in affording off-campus housing. However, close scrutiny reveals several flaws in it.

To begin with, the author unfairly assumes that more students would be enrolled into the college since the increasing trend these years. No evidences provided in the passage to support it. It is totally possible that the prospective student pool will shrink for the prohibitive tuition fees and less financial aids. Or maybe these years there were more teenagers, the ones who compose the most part of the prospective students, in the general population, but soon after it will return to the normal level or even fewer. Without eliminating or even considering such possibilities, the author could not convince me to accept the conclusion that there would be more students.

Granted that more students would be enrolled in the college, the author hastily allege that there would be out of dormitory for those students. However, this is not the case. First, the author provides no information of the number of the graduates of the college in these years. Maybe large amount of graduates in the coming years will leave sufficient dormitories for the freshmen, or perhaps even more vacancies. Secondly, the author assumes that all new students need to have a dormitory. Perhaps quite a number of new students will register as the distance course students who only need to get online courses at home. Or maybe most part of the freshmen is local students so that they could stay with their parents. Either scenario, if true, would serve to undermine author's assumption of more dormitory needed in the future.

Furthermore, the author imposed an either/or choice based on two mutually non-exclusive alternatives and leaves no space for the mid-ground. Perhaps those students could rent an apartment nearby which is less expensive and commute the campus to have classes. Until the author completes the analysis the conclusion of the need of dormitory could not be taken seriously.

Finally, the author fails to provide evidences to ensure us that new dormitory could be a point to attract prospective students. Commonsense informs us that students care more about academic fame of the college, professor reputation and tuition fees. Living condition might be a consideration but scarcely to be the determinant. Without providing sufficient evidence, the recommendation for the college to build a dormitory to attract students could be ridiculous.

In sum, the argument is groundless as it stands. To consolidate it, the author should provide more evidences--maybe by the polls among general population--to show that more prospective students would like to enter the college in the future. In addition, the author should assure us that prices of off-campus housing will keep increasing and students have no other choices but live on-campus. To better assess the argument, we need to know whether it would be effective for the college to attractive students by offering new dormitory.