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.