ROTC Making a Comeback

Looks like the ROTC is finding more favor these days with both students and colleges:

After being shunned by scores of colleges across the country for more than 40 years, the U.S. Army's ROTC program is making a comeback.

Roughly 32,000 cadets are currently enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps on the university level -- a modest, yet notable, increase from previous years, says Lt. Col. Michael Indovina, chief public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Cadet Command. He said the program had 30,721 cadets a year ago and 28,489 the year before.

About 273 colleges and universities currently host the 200-year-old ROTC program, which often covers a student's full tuition in exchange for a fixed period of active and inactive military service after graduation.

At schools like Georgetown, Texas A&M and Cornell, professors of military science teach ROTC courses on campus. In exchange for receiving training and financial benefits, the enrollees must then commit to three to four years of active military service -- and often four years of "inactive ready reserve responsibility," according to Indovina.

"We have a lot of kids who want to serve their country," said Indovina, who declined to speculate on reasons for the steady enrollment increase over the last five years. "Do we have some cadets who are doing this because of the economy? Sure, but it's not something we track."

My son has been considering the Air Force ROTC program through Sacramento State. We're still looking into all the will be involved, but he's pretty interested in going that route. At least when he graduates from college he'll have a job, and that's more than a lot of other college graduates will be able to say.