ROTC Provides Paid College Education For Students

The state of the economy is making many high school students start to accept choices their parents would have rejected flat out. One of these choices is enrolling into the Reserve Officers Training Corp (ROTC). The ROTC was created during the Civil War as a way to produced qualified military officers outside of West Point.

The basic principle was simple. A student's military education would be paid for if, in turn, after graduation the student served in the military for the next four years.  The Vietnam War era put military service in such bad light that ROTC was actually banned by schools such as Harvard. Forty years later and that is hardly the situation.

There are five key ROTC programs - the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard.  Students are now exploring many of these avenues as the cost of higher education continues to rise.

Many top colleges, both online and on campus, offer the ROTC programs. Harvard even reinstated its ROTC. In part, since Desert Storm and especially after the 9/11 tragedy, the military’s popularity has made a major turnaround. Further, the ROTC offers a full-tuition scholarship, plus a fees stipend that has actually increased every year.  Yes, after graduation it’s time to be stationed wherever the military sends you, but in these economic times, that is considered a bonus many are happy to accept.

Another point making the ROTC quite attractive is that after a student graduates they will be gainfully employed for at least another four years. They will also learn invaluable management techniques supervising non-comms that they can apply in the civilian working world. Recruiters see the four-year hitch as a plus, too. After all, this is four years of on-the-job experience. That’s quite attractive to companies, especially in the STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) disciplines.

There are also skills an ROTC grad has over his West Point and Annapolis counterparts. One is that they don’t live the cloistered live of a midshipmen or cadet. ROTC students are more, for lack of a better term, worldly. Also, they develop acute time management skills from balancing school, work and military obligations. If that isn’t enough, the ROTC grad is considered more rounded as they usually manage to make time for personal hobbies.

The antagonism ROTC students endured in the past is just that, the past. These days they are treated with more respect for serving the country. As a final bonus, as the military has tough physical programs, many enter the civilian world in excellent physical shape.

There apparently is also a belief that ROTC grads value education more than civilians. They have firsthand experience regarding hard work paying dividends. They also know their personal sacrifice has a lot of positive ramifications in the civilian workforce.

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