Reserve Recruiting in the College Market
New Educational Benefits Could Attract High-Aptitude Recruits
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T
o fulfill their national defense missions,
both the active-duty and Reserve components of the U.S. military services must
attract and retain high-quality personnel.
However, high-quality personnel—those who have
a high school diploma and score in the top half of
the score distribution on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT)—are increasingly interested
in obtaining a college degree. To attract these individuals, the Active and Reserve forces offer a range
of educational benefits to their soldiers. The Army
and Navy, for example, have been experimenting
with new programs for active-duty recruits that
enhance educational benefits (increasing the maximum monthly and annual payouts, for example)
and/or allow recruits to attend college first, before
they report for active duty.1 While many Reserve
educational benefits have been expanded, there have
been no major initiatives to restructure these programs or to develop new programs that help reservists combine Reserve duty with college attendance.
As military planners prepare to meet diverse and
uncertain threats, and as Reserve units continue to
participate in a wide range of military and civilian
operations, the demand for high-quality personnel
in the Reserves will remain high. Would programs
similar to those implemented in the Active forces
work for the Reserves?
RAND Assessed Need for a New
Educational Benefit in the Reserves
The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Reserve Affairs (Manpower and Personnel) asked
the RAND Corporation to assess whether new
educational programs would help the Reserve forces
meet their recruiting goals, and whether the potential of these programs warrants a more extensive
evaluation, including randomized field trials. The
study considered both prior-service and non-prior1
www.rand.org
Examples include the Army’s “College First” program and
the Navy’s “Tech Prep” program.
Abstract
RAND found that, for most military service
members, college attendance is compatible
with Reserve service. Many reservists successfully combine service with both civilian jobs
and college, and use the educational benefits
available to them. However, those who score
the highest on the AFQT may want to pursue
college more intensively than the Reserve components allow, particularly given the increased
possibility of activation or of longer activations. To attract these individuals, the military
might consider programs that allow recruits to
attend college without the risk of being activated with their Reserve units.
service recruits—i.e., those who had served on
active duty before beginning their Reserve service
and those who had not.
RAND did not explicitly test how a new educational benefit program would affect Reserve
recruiting; rather, the approach was qualitative and
descriptive. We examined how college attendance
has changed over time among both youth in general and reservists in particular, and how college
attendance and completion rates vary according
to cognitive ability. We examined how reservists
currently combine Reserve service with college
attendance and civilian employment. We compared
reservists’ educational benefits with those available
to civilians and active-duty veterans. Finally, we
synthesized our findings and assessed whether a
restructured educational benefit is likely to affect
enlistments, and if so, what kind of potential
recruits these new benefits might attract.
Reservists Pursue Both College and
Work, and Use Available Benefits
The demand for college among reservists is strong
and increasing; 23 percent of reservists obtain
a college degree by age 30. As the figure shows, the educational
attainment of reservists has increased along with their expectations.
In 2000, 20 percent of reservists age 19 to 24 were enrolled in a
two-year degree program, and 34 percent were currently enrolled
in a four-year degree program. This rate of college enrollment
(54 percent overall) is substantially higher than the rate of college
enrollment reported in the Current Population Survey for males
age 19 to 24 with at least a high school degree in 2000 (39 percent
overall). We observe the same general pattern in educational attainment and expectations among reservists age 25 to 30.
college. Among reservists age 19 to 24, 64 percent of those attending college reported working in a civilian job compared with 52 percent of all civilian males in this age range attending college.
According to the results of the 2000 Survey of Reserve Component Personnel, 70 percent of reservists age 19 to 30 who are
enrolled in college reported using military educational benefits. Of
those individuals, about 65 percent reported that their educational
benefits were an important influence on their deciding to stay in
the Reserves. Furthermore, we found that the financial aid received
by reservists age 19 to 30 seems to be comparable to aid received by
active-duty members.
Educational Expectations, Attainment, and Enrollment Among
Reservists Age 19 to 24, 1986, 1992, and 2000
Expect to receive:
Educational attainment:
Current enrollment:
Associate’s degree
Some college
2-year college
Bachelor’s degree
Associate’s degree
4-year college
Bachelor’s degree
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1986
1992
2000
In the overall population, the demand for college has increased
throughout the AFQT distribution and, for men, has increased
especially among individuals who score in the middle AFQT categories. However, these individuals pursue college less intensively and
work more hours on their civilian jobs than those who score in the
upper ranges of the AFQT. Less than one-third of AFQT Category
III individuals finish a two- or four-year degree program within six
years of their initial enrollment.
Reserve service is generally compatible with college attendance.
In times of peace, most reservists are obligated to drill only one
weekend per month and two weeks during the summer. However,
the risk of being called to active duty has increased greatly since
9/11. Individuals who want to attend college without interruption
may find this increased risk to be unacceptable.
Although the Reserves will help finance a significant portion of
college costs, reservists are particularly likely to work while attending
Designing New Educational Benefits for Reservists
The key populations the Reserve components seek to recruit, those
in AFQT Categories II–IIIB, have a higher propensity to attend college than in the past. Less well known, however, is that this population typically attends college less intensively and completes college
less rapidly than individuals in AFQT Category I. Consequently,
educational benefits in the Reserves generally need not be tailored to
individuals who pursue college intensively.
On the other hand, higher-aptitude individuals (those who score
in Categories I and II on the AFQT) who have a strong preference
for attending college intensively may resist Reserve service because
they would find the potential disruption of college for Active service
unacceptable. If the Reserves want to attract these individuals for
specific occupations or technical areas, or to improve the overall
aptitude of the enlisted force, they might allow some reservists to
pursue college first and serve in the Reserves afterward.
One possibility for attracting higher-aptitude individuals is an
ROTC-like program for enlisted personnel that would allow individuals to attend college while serving in a Reserve unit, without the
risk of activation. After college, these reservists might be required to
enlist for a longer term of service or perhaps serve with a higher risk
of activation. The inability of the Reserve components to activate
the participants would significantly reduce the participants’ value to
the Reserves in the short term, and potentially have an adverse effect
on the morale of reservists who are in college but are not program
participants and thus are vulnerable to activation. Whether such a
program would be cost effective is a topic requiring further research.
Moreover, implementation of these programs should include an
ongoing evaluation component.
More formal analyses of these types of programs may be warranted in the future as the Reserve components adjust to the
demands of homeland security and the war on terrorism, international peacekeeping efforts, and the Department of Defense’s desire
to more fully integrate the Reserve and Active forces.
This research brief describes work done for the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a unit of the RAND Corporation, and documented in Reserve Recruiting and the College
Market: Is a New Educational Benefit Needed? by Beth Asch and David Loughran, 2004, 96 pages, $20, ISBN: 0-8330-3686-6, available at http://www.rand.org/publications/TR/
TR127/. Also available from RAND Distribution Services (phone: 310-451-7002; toll free 877-584-8642; or email: order@rand.org). The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research
organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R® is a registered trademark.
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CIVIL JUSTICE
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NATIONAL SECURITY
This product is part of the RAND Corporation
research brief series. RAND research briefs present
policy-oriented summaries of individual published, peerreviewed documents or of a body of published work.
POPULATION AND AGING
PUBLIC SAFETY
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
SUBSTANCE ABUSE
TERRORISM AND
HOMELAND SECURITY
TRANSPORTATION AND
INFRASTRUCTURE
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