Two-Year Colleges and Vocational Schools as Sources of Military Manpower

摘要

This study examines the recruiting potential of two-year colleges and postsecondary vocational schools as a means for meeting the military's needs for nonprior service high school graduates in the next decade. The authors found that these institutions contain sufficiently large numbers of men of enlistment age to make them an attractive recruiting market, and that the majority of their students are potentially high-quality enlistees. Their findings also indicated, however, that in systematic attempts to recruit from these institutions, the military has not substantially increased enlistment rates; that there do not appear to be hot spots across the nation in which recruiting from these institutions has been particulary successful; and that special (and potentially more costly) incentives and recruiting tactics may be needed to increase enlistment rates. The authors conclude that these institutions are far too important as sources of accessions to be ignored, and recommend collecting additionally information to determine whether the quality of enlistees from postsecondary educational institutions warrants the comparatively higher costs of recruiting them. Concludes with table showing numbers of recruits by state, local area and of education.