“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.
Bob Hale says the tortoise is winning:
The tortoise represents a persistent Obama Administration that has pushed for changes that can become law, freeing up billions a year to improve military capabilities. The tortoise also represents a Congress that, while sometimes reluctant, has approved many of the Obama Administration changes and, in a few cases, has gone beyond them.
Yesterday, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosted a forum to discuss the letter issued by a consortium of think tanks encouraging defense reform. Many speakers mentioned the need for data. It is time for Defense to have a Chief Data Officer and Chief Economist. In addition, DoD needs to remove many of the IT bottlenecks that prevent information gathering and sharing.