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CCCO WR Special Report AUGUST 1978 The following is the text of a speech given by Thomas Carr, Director of Defense Education for the Department of Defense, before the National Council on Continuing Education in Los Angeles last summer. In his speech, Mr. Carr seems to characterize both the military and the educational community as hucksters competing for a decreasing number of 18-year-olds. He predicts that both the re cruiting problems of the Armed Forces and the financial problems of higher educational institutions can be solved by forming a partnership. He further explains this "partnership" by suggesting that by 1984 the military will supervise the largest university in the world. We offer below the full text of Mr. Carr's speech so you may judge for yourself the importance of this Pentagon official's plan. A major sociological fact of our time is that the United States is running short of 18-year- olds. The World War II baby boom is over, and the number of individuals in the 17 to 22-year- old age group in proportion to the total population will soon be the smallest in our entire history. Assuming the nation will need to maintain an active duty military force of about 2.1 million and that women will continue to join the services at about the present rate, then, in the next five to ten years -- let's take 1984 for both its median and its Orwellian connotations -- the military must recruit more than one out of three male 18-year-olds. One of three! How will education be used to improve the odds of succeeding in such a difficult task? How can the quality of the force be maintained -- or developed? What new societal role may the Armed Forces be asked to assume? What will be the impact of all this on a major competitor for high-quality 18-year-olds -- the education community itself? These, and related questions, are perhaps the central issues concerning the future of education in the military. Before examining that future more closely, it is appropriate to take a quick look at where American higher education seems to be going. Not only is the military affected greatly by demographics, but so too is education. In 1965, 17-year-olds constituted the largest single age group in the country. In the five years between 1960 and 1965, the preponderant age had dropped from 35-40 all the way down to 17. To compound the problem, many of these 17-year-olds stayed in school rather than joining the work force -- and American education responded by accelerating construction of a vast higher education production line. During the 60's and early 70's new campuses by the hundreds sprang up to meet an enormous projected demand. Today, there is hardly a home in America that is not within easy commuting distance of a college, university, or community or junior college. One of five professionals in America works in some facet of education. In short, the machinery was constructed just as the raw material began to disappear. The effect of this on institutions of higher education has ranged from serious to disastrous. EDUCATION IN THE MILITARY: A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE Thomas W. Carr A 1976 study conducted by Change magazine revealed that almost one-half of over 2,000 institutions surveyed were considered to be in a financially unhealthy condition -- and only 11.7 percent of four-year undergraduate colleges fell into the "healthy" category. Having thus been burned severely, higher education is now more alert to demographic trends. It is aware, for example, that in the next ten years, the number of 25-34-year-olds in the population will increase by 44 percent. Thus, adult or continuing education is no longer a subsidiary activity of post-secondary institutions. According to the National Advisory Council on Extension and Continuing Education, it represents their fastest growing educational activity. This expansion has been so rapid that a major turning point in American education has been reached: for the first time in history, the majority of students enrolled in postsecondary institutions are adults continuing their education on a part-time basis. One can therefore predict that by 1984 higher education will focus considerably less of its attention on the teenage learner and considerably more on the adult. The high-school-graduation-to four-years-at-the-same-college phenomenon will have become quite rare -- replaced with a variety of post-high-school-work/school variations, many involving vocational and technical education, and only a small percentage providing four years of continuous learning at a single institution. The military, too, will, by 1984, have changed both in image and substance. The complexity of management and hardware systems within the Armed Forces will equal those in other sophisticated fields of endeavor. Perhaps 85-90 percent of the skills required in the military will relate to civilian occupations, and job transferability will create both new problems and new opportunities for military recruitment. As noted earlier, the U.S. labor force will have become considerably older. Unless new job opportunities exist, the inexperienced 18-year-old will find competition from mature and experienced workers more intense than it is today. Military service will thus be seen by many young people as an attractive and worthwhile opportunity for training, education and work experience. With all this as background, one might make a series of fairly safe guesses about the future of education in the military.
Object Description
Title | CCCO WR special report |
Place of publication | San Francisco, California |
Publisher | Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors Western Region |
Publication date | 1978 |
Language | English |
Country | United States |
State | California |
Digital Format | XML |
Publisher-Electronic | Wisconsin Historical Society |
Publication Date-Electronic | 2016 |
Rights | Copyright belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited. |
Owner | Brünn, Harris Watts Collection - Serials and Press Release Soldiers Movements, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam |
Type | Text |
Digital identifier | giNewsletter714000 |
Description
Title | p. 1 |
Language | English |
Digital Format | JPEG2000 |
Publisher-Electronic | Wisconsin Historical Society |
Publication Date-Electronic | 2016 |
Rights | Copyright belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited. |
Owner | Brünn, Harris Watts Collection - Serials and Press Release Soldiers Movements, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam |
Full text | CCCO WR Special Report AUGUST 1978 The following is the text of a speech given by Thomas Carr, Director of Defense Education for the Department of Defense, before the National Council on Continuing Education in Los Angeles last summer. In his speech, Mr. Carr seems to characterize both the military and the educational community as hucksters competing for a decreasing number of 18-year-olds. He predicts that both the re cruiting problems of the Armed Forces and the financial problems of higher educational institutions can be solved by forming a partnership. He further explains this "partnership" by suggesting that by 1984 the military will supervise the largest university in the world. We offer below the full text of Mr. Carr's speech so you may judge for yourself the importance of this Pentagon official's plan. A major sociological fact of our time is that the United States is running short of 18-year- olds. The World War II baby boom is over, and the number of individuals in the 17 to 22-year- old age group in proportion to the total population will soon be the smallest in our entire history. Assuming the nation will need to maintain an active duty military force of about 2.1 million and that women will continue to join the services at about the present rate, then, in the next five to ten years -- let's take 1984 for both its median and its Orwellian connotations -- the military must recruit more than one out of three male 18-year-olds. One of three! How will education be used to improve the odds of succeeding in such a difficult task? How can the quality of the force be maintained -- or developed? What new societal role may the Armed Forces be asked to assume? What will be the impact of all this on a major competitor for high-quality 18-year-olds -- the education community itself? These, and related questions, are perhaps the central issues concerning the future of education in the military. Before examining that future more closely, it is appropriate to take a quick look at where American higher education seems to be going. Not only is the military affected greatly by demographics, but so too is education. In 1965, 17-year-olds constituted the largest single age group in the country. In the five years between 1960 and 1965, the preponderant age had dropped from 35-40 all the way down to 17. To compound the problem, many of these 17-year-olds stayed in school rather than joining the work force -- and American education responded by accelerating construction of a vast higher education production line. During the 60's and early 70's new campuses by the hundreds sprang up to meet an enormous projected demand. Today, there is hardly a home in America that is not within easy commuting distance of a college, university, or community or junior college. One of five professionals in America works in some facet of education. In short, the machinery was constructed just as the raw material began to disappear. The effect of this on institutions of higher education has ranged from serious to disastrous. EDUCATION IN THE MILITARY: A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE Thomas W. Carr A 1976 study conducted by Change magazine revealed that almost one-half of over 2,000 institutions surveyed were considered to be in a financially unhealthy condition -- and only 11.7 percent of four-year undergraduate colleges fell into the "healthy" category. Having thus been burned severely, higher education is now more alert to demographic trends. It is aware, for example, that in the next ten years, the number of 25-34-year-olds in the population will increase by 44 percent. Thus, adult or continuing education is no longer a subsidiary activity of post-secondary institutions. According to the National Advisory Council on Extension and Continuing Education, it represents their fastest growing educational activity. This expansion has been so rapid that a major turning point in American education has been reached: for the first time in history, the majority of students enrolled in postsecondary institutions are adults continuing their education on a part-time basis. One can therefore predict that by 1984 higher education will focus considerably less of its attention on the teenage learner and considerably more on the adult. The high-school-graduation-to four-years-at-the-same-college phenomenon will have become quite rare -- replaced with a variety of post-high-school-work/school variations, many involving vocational and technical education, and only a small percentage providing four years of continuous learning at a single institution. The military, too, will, by 1984, have changed both in image and substance. The complexity of management and hardware systems within the Armed Forces will equal those in other sophisticated fields of endeavor. Perhaps 85-90 percent of the skills required in the military will relate to civilian occupations, and job transferability will create both new problems and new opportunities for military recruitment. As noted earlier, the U.S. labor force will have become considerably older. Unless new job opportunities exist, the inexperienced 18-year-old will find competition from mature and experienced workers more intense than it is today. Military service will thus be seen by many young people as an attractive and worthwhile opportunity for training, education and work experience. With all this as background, one might make a series of fairly safe guesses about the future of education in the military. |
Type | Text |
Digital identifier | giNewsletter714001 |