ROTC Enrollment Rising

ABC News On Campus reporter Chris Badders blogs:

Financial aid and the promise of a paying job may be fueling enrollment at the nation’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program, which is seeing a significant increase in applicants.

According to Army ROTC spokesperson Paul Kotakis, the fall enrollment numbers for the class of 2008-2009 total 30,721 cadets, an 8 percent hike from the previous year. The Air Force ROTC also saw its enrollment numbers increase 8 percent, from 12,360 to 13,343 cadets, according to Air Force spokesman Phil Berube. The Navy and Marines combine to form the Navy ROTC, which did not return calls for comment.

These numbers mimic an increase in applications at the nation’s military academies, first reported in the New York Times last week. The Times reported the U.S. Military Academy saw applications increase 9.6 percent and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs saw an increase of just under 10 percent. The Naval Academy had the biggest increase, up 40 percent from last year.

All graduates from either a military academy or an ROTC program are commissioned officers in their respective branches upon graduation.

The ROTC programs are not mandatory for all college campuses. According to Berube, it is up to the university or college to request Air Force detachments from the military.

The Air Force currently has 144 ROTC detachments, but is missing from most of the Ivy League schools.
The Army has 273 ROTC units, and does operate at both Princeton and Cornell, but none of the other Ivy League schools.

The Army also has 1,200 partnership programs, where students from schools without ROTC programs can participate in the program at institutions close to theirs. For example, a student at Harvard can take classes at Harvard, but also be involved in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Army ROTC unit.
The Army’s policy towards creating new units is slightly different from the Air Force.

First the academic institution has to have a desire to have a unit. Then the Army must decide if creating a unit at that institution is the best place for the unit, meaning it is the best use of Army resources and provides the broadest reach for enrolling cadets.

There is also a third option, known as Officer Candidate School (OCS), a compressed 12-week program that trains participants to be commissioned officers.

Air Force Lt. Col. Lawrence King, a graduate of OCS, says ROTC is different from OCS because of the time aspect. OCS and ROTC “are two different programs with time duration in mind,” King said. “Neither is better than the other.”

Since OCS is compressed into 12 weeks, there isn’t much time for anything else.

ROTC, however, gives cadets 4 years to prepare. According to King, the time difference allows for more leadership preparation time, more time to absorb in the core ideas of the Air Force. Cadets also only have to live the “Air Force lifestyle” once a week, as opposed to every day at military academies and OCS.

Army Lt. Col. Monte Yoder, an ROTC graduate, agrees with King, saying ROTC cadets are really college students that learn the skills to be an officer as an extracurricular. The military academy cadet has a much more structure to their training. Both are wonderful ways to go if you want to be an officer in the military, Yoder added.

When asked why the numbers are increasing, both men could only offer speculation saying that with the bad economy cadets are turned on to the ideas of financial assistance for college and a paying job as soon as they graduate.

Yoder added that cadets are following their friends into ROTC, which creates a certain level of camaraderie within the detachment. He also cited a growing desire of cadets wanting to serve their nation and be on active duty as reasons for enrolling.