<p>well- according to the USMA aog the USMA graduation rate for 2006 was 74%- and VMI’s was 73%. The Army ROTC scholarship requires a contractual committment at the start of second (third class) year while USMA obligation starts at start of 2d class year. The Army number you are citing is all Army ROTC cadets which includes non scholarship cadets- ie… cadets receiving nothing until they contract at the start of their Junior year at which point they are obligated and they start receiving a stipend only so hardly the same cost data. As far as promotability- given that virtually 100% of the officer corps are selected to O3 that is at best not a completely objective measurement and certainly the old school tie phenomenon comes into play in that measurement.
Having said all that- the above is clearly a combination of opinion and some arguable facts. However I have a pretty hard time seeing what the justification for USMMA is given the state of the industry it serves, the multiplicity of sources of professional licensed officers with apparently a higher rate of professional qualification and its overall cost ($62 million this year). In fact it’s only been in the last couple of years that USMMA started rigorously enforcing it’s graduates to sail on their license - instead issuing widespread waivers to take jobs ashore that were only tangentially connected to the Maritime industy at all ( for example a friend of mine went into Marine Insurance after sailing as an engineer for an articulated Tug and Barge operation for 1 year. ) I don’t know what the percentage of graduates is from USMMA who make the military a profession, but I suspect it is relatively low and maybe no higher than the yield from ROTC scholarship winners but at a significanly higher cost. I just have a difficult time seeing the justification for this academy at a time when clearly the nonDod budget is going to be under increasingly stringent constraints.</p>