<p>Since USMMA has no direct mandatory service connection, I did not mean to include it in my cost effectiveness statement. </p>
<p>Since you are somewhat skeptical of ‘old school ties’ influencing the outcome of my statement, let’s use your numbers. $120k to graduate a ROTC student. The Army now is claiming that they have to recruit three to graduate one. VMI’s graduation rate is also substantially lower than WP. When does the typical ROTC student quit? At the two year mark prior to obligating commitment. If this were true across the board, which it is not, we have just doubled the cost of a ROTC graduation. A substantial portion of WP cadets resign early in their first year. It is a planned attrition with very little costs to the government. Now add the costs of ROTC recruiting which is much higher than SA recruiting. Lastly, SA grads stay in the service longer than those from ROTC. Add a 1.2 or so factor for this (purely assumptive on my part but not far off) and the costs are the same. This is without even considering the quality and promotability of the officer. </p>
<p>Just a rough example to show that it is far from being the simply the cost of each individual graduate.</p>