“The evidence appears to be that there really is not an advantage,” Bernanke told a crowd at a Brookings Institution event in Washington. “If you go into the military at age 18 — versus an identical person who stays in the private sector and takes a private sector job — 10 years later, if you leave the military, your skills and wages are probably not going to be quite as high on average as a private sector person.”
Some have argued that jobs in the private sector have inflated degree requirements. Now, a junior officer argues in the Wall Street Journal that "a college degree in 2015 no longer signals—let alone guarantees—much of anything." And, therefore, the military should no longer require college degrees for officers. I do not find his arguments convincing.
Also, the statistics he cites likely include warrant officers which drives the percent of officers with bachelor's degrees down to 83 percent. Only by exception may a officer without a bachelor's degree hold a commission. In the Air Force, which no longer has warrant officers, all commissioned officers hold at least a bachelor's degree and nearly 60 percent hold a graduate or professional degree. And, through promotion incentives and tuition assistance, 10 percent of the enlisted population hold at least a bachelor's degree and another 24 percent have an associate's degree.
New report from Brookings by Matthew F. Cancian and Michael W. Klein:
In this paper, we show that the quality of officers in the Marines, as measured by scores on the General Classification Test (GCT), a test that all officers take, has steadily and significantly declined since 1980.
I would like to know if the result is robust across all branches of service.
This paper analyzed the quality of the officers of one branch of the military, the Marine Corps, and found a relevant and steady decline in intelligence, as measured by GCT scores, since 1980. This decline was closely associated with an expansion of the pool of young college graduates during the same time period, which potentially diminished the overall intellectual quality of that pool.
I enjoy listening to EconTalk. This week, the host, Russ Roberts, spoke with Leonard Wong about honesty in the military.
Leonard Wong of the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about honesty in the military. Based on a recent co-authored paper, Wong argues that the paperwork and training burden on U.S. military officers requires dishonesty--it is simply impossible to comply with all the requirements. This creates a tension for an institution that prides itself on honesty, trust, and integrity. The conversation closes with suggestions for how the military might reform the compliance and requirement process.
This discussion stemmed from Wong's recent paper:
"Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession," by Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras. Strategic Studies Institute, February 2015. PDF file.
Calculating the percentage of Americans who have served in the military is not a straightforward exercise.