One place where the military’s recruiting problems and education intersect is at college — specifically, the service academies and the ROTC program. One might think that the military’s recruiting problems would be mirrored in the colleges and universities that feed its officer corps. But this is false; the service academies continue to be a magnet for the country’s top high school students, and are beacons of academic and athletic excellence.

Today’s newsletter may be a little bit abstract. But we rarely think of the service academies when we think about recruiting, or when we think about military education — or when we think about education in general, how to prepare a person to be a productive member of society. The service academies (what we’re looking at today — minus The Coast Guard Academy and The Merchant Marine Academy) and the ROTCs (what we’re looking at tomorrow) are interesting because they provide two functions at once: providing a formal military education that satisfies some of the requirements for a person to carry out service as a commissioned officer, and providing students with the necessary work to earn a bachelor’s degree from an accredited academic institute.

The country makes a tremendous investment in the faculty, staffs, and students of service academies — the cost of attendance at service academies is free (or, a 4-year service obligation upon graduation). This investment is returned first through a military led in part by motivated and capable young men and women, and later again through a citizenry that has as part of it a portion of well-educated and experienced leaders. They’re also — at least according to US News and World Report — almost indistinguishable in terms of overall quality and value. Are they culturally similar? Well, that’s a question for their graduates.

THE BIG STORY

Service Academies in America

Part recruiting mechanism, part engineering hub, America’s service academies justify the money used to keep them running.

Before writing or thinking more about student veterans, it might be good to take a step back and think more generally about military education and experience, and how that forms a person. After all, the recruiting crisis seems on some level to be tied to an education crisis in the U.S.: high schools are no longer preparing as many people to be physically or academically fit (as defined by the military) by the time they reach 18.

Tremendous amounts of money are invested in the U.S. education system, privately and publicly. We do this for a variety of reasons. Private investment — daycare for children, tutors, private schools, private universities — reflects a selfish desire among parents (my own included) that their children (my own included) receive the best possible education and professional opportunities. Public investment — public schools, public universities — reflects an altruistic conception of “the common good,” and a basic understanding that a community (town, state, country) does better when its population receives a quality education.

It’s a lot of money, and we’re comfortable paying that because we understand that education is important. Take my home town of Branford, Connecticut, as an example. I sit on the town Representative Town Meeting or RTM, which votes on the town budget, among other things. The budget last year was about $120 million. $61 million of that went to the public school system.

Or consider Yale, my alma mater. A private university, Yale is somewhat controversially not required to pay taxes on real estate — under Connecticut’s Constitution, Yale is exempt from taxes in the same way that a church might be. Why? Well, before the state had any public universities, its wise and well-educated leaders understood that having a university in Connecticut was a thing worth fostering, and nobody has seen fit to change that. Now Yale is New Haven’s largest employer, and among the biggest employers in the state. It is, besides, among the most prestigious universities in the world.

Education is an investment. It pays back communities with well-read and (one hopes) better prepared young workers, who are widely read and capable of thinking critically about problems. In the aggregate this ought to produce better outcomes.

This is the background for the service academies, each of which fill a slightly different role and have different cultures, reflecting the way in which officers must be prepared for the various requirements of their respective service. U.S. News and World Report ranks the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis), The U.S. Military Academy (USMA), and The U.S. Air Force Academy 1, 2, and 3 respectively in their “Top Public Schools” category. Furthermore the schools all have excellent academic reputations and are broadly seen as comparable to Ivy League schools, or top liberal arts colleges.

Looking at the service academies in terms of what they’re preparing one to do immediately afterward, it’s easy to say where one ought to go based on one’s interests. A person hoping to join the Navy or Marine Corps would attend Annapolis (quick aside — a person hoping to join special operations straight out of college would attend Annapolis, too, as the Navy SEALs draw their officers directly from college). A person hoping to join the Army would attend USMA. And a person hoping to join the Air Force would attend the Air Force Academy.

These officers are learning different traditions, but all undergoing the basic military education that every officer ought to know. In terms of culture, the service academies are preparing their graduates for different paths, as the skills one must learn to prosper as an officer in the Navy are different from those that will help one thrive in the Army. But in terms of a basic military and university education, what cadets/midshipmen receive is comparable.

At the same time that lowered fitness and academic competence has helped suppress new enlistments, the service academies stand out for their ability to compete with top U.S. universities for student talent.

One of the most attractive facets of attending a service academy is that they cost no money. All that one owes is time after graduation — time in service, to which most midshipmen and cadets presumably look forward given the effort they put into graduating. Finishing college without student debt means having a new house in one’s pocket, and while some of that is offset by the salary one makes after graduation (not six figures), knowing that one owes no money is a special kind of liberation in the U.S., it opens up choices and chances one would not have otherwise enjoyed.

But I think the reason service academies attract high quality students goes beyond the financial component. Most young people don’t think carefully about finances; how can they, few of them have lived with significant financial responsibilities, or can know what it’s like to have one’s choices limited by a lack of money (or by many debts). I think the reputation of the service academies goes a long way toward attracting quality candidates.

In this sense, we have a situation that is similar to that of the Marine Corps. The Corps invests money and effort to ensuring its recruiters are good at their jobs and motivated. They also invest time and money into cultivating a reputation for excellence, which makes the recruiters’ job much easier.

Maintaining the service academies as top-ranked academic institutions goes a long way toward making sure a main pipeline for new officers remains solid and reliable. While that takes a lot of money from the public, and all the energy that goes into coordinating a major institution, it justifies itself in the short run and long run.

It’s difficult to say what advantages or disadvantages a student incurs in the long term, having graduated from USMA versus The Air Force Academy versus Annapolis. Overall there must be some ways in which each academy (and service) suits a particular temperament better than others. As a prospective student, it’s important to determine whether one would do better as an officer on board a ship, dedicated to your small part of making that ship’s mission a success. It will also some day help one decide whether to go into finance, start one’s own company, or join a Fortune 100 company as part of the corporate management team. As a parent, this knowledge can help one offer useful advice to one’s children, or people looking for guidance about college.

It seems clear that the service academies play an important role in keeping the military at the cutting edge of preparedness by preparing young officers for service. They do credit to the military in general. The service academies also offer mid-career officers an opportunity to teach and reflect; this too strengthens the force. Finally, they (like other colleges) help prepare their graduates for life after the military by delivering a sound basis for evaluating information, and making informed choices, key to a useful citizen and healthy community.

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