Why havent i ever heard of the NAVY Baccalaureate Degree Completion Program (BDCP)?

Ross

One of the selling points to get enlisted recruits is by advertising GI Bill benefits for college. Among students who enlist for college benefits there is a dearth of knowledge regarding available financial resources to pay for college. Often times they are from working class families and their parents are not college graduates. There are plenty of community activitsts out spreading the word of available financial benefits in ethnic communities and the schools they attend but in largely white working class areas and in the schools they attend there is little interest on the part of the same activists to inform the students from the same or even much poorer socio-economic classes of available resources. The teachers and counselors in most schools are usually quite anti-military and completely uninformed of the benefits available to students who wish to become officers. To many, rotc is simply a dirty word from their college days. Something to protest against. The purpose of jrotc, which is to provide the first two years of the college rotc curriculum to high school students has been subverted by the anti military politics in most school districts. To survive, the program had to be promoted as a citizenship program and as an alternative to midnight basketball in the urban schools. In upper middle class schools, it is very rare to find a jrotc program at all. So jrotc has not been able to target the students who are best prepared to go to college and are prime officer material. It has largely become a source of enlisted recruits; maybe the name should be changed to jretc. Three years of jrotc however still is the equivalent of the college rotc basic course, but currently it is almost irrelevant since the ECP is only available at the nation's five military jc's: nmmi, vfmc, gmc, mmi, wentworth. Even if a student already has a sufficient jrotc background, he cannot enroll in the advanced course till Junior year except at the military jc's, and I think it has been like this for about 25 years. The anti military feeling of the 60's and the elimination of compulsory rotc at the land grant universities during the 60's at a time when jrotc was set to expand, also factors in, but telling that story would require a book. The end of the Draft in 1972 changed everything. The military would have to compete for enlisted recruits.
So, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding the benefits of afrotc, nrotc, nrotc mo and rotc among high school students which probably affects the quality of applicants to a certain extent, but the military doesn't want to launch a national campaign touting the educational benefits of programs like rotc because the lack of knowledge helps them to recruit an overall more talented class of enlisted soldier. As it is, nrotc and afrotc scholarships have become highly competitive. There might be a need to advertise nrotc on a specific campus and the Navy does in the student newspaper. Usually at the more selective universities that have an nrotc battalion; but overall, there is not a need to advertise in the mass media. Nrotc, nrtoc mo and rotc pay full tuition regardless of cost. afrotc has more demand and therefore can limit tuition. Nrotc as of this fall has reached a demand level whereby they have in essence increased the payback by adding a year to the active duty requirement from four to five years for navy option mids, but it remains at four years for marine option. BDCP is primarily for schools that do not have an nrotc battalion, and there are only 58 universities that do. Besides BDCP the Coast Guard has an even better program called CSPI however as of March 2009, it is now restricted to Hispanic serving, historically black and native american universities. But the hispanic serivng institutions actually covers quite a few universities, at least in California.
http://www.gocoastguard.com/find-your-fit/officer-opportunities/programs/college-student-pre-commissioning-initiative
The Coast Guard also offers direct commissions to graduates of usmma and the six state maritime academies: California, Great Lakes(Michigan), Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Texas:
http://www.gocoastguard.com/find-your-fit/officer-opportunities/programs/maritime-academy-graduate
http://www.csum.edu/Military/MilitaryOptions.asp
http://www.mainemaritime.edu/
http://www.maritime.edu/
http://www.sunymaritime.edu/
The air force also has an equivalent program but I can't think of the name for it. The PLC is the Marines largest officer commissioning source but how many people have ever heard of it:
http://dcmarineofficer.com/platoonleadersclass.html
http://marineofficer.com/page/Officer-Sitemap.jsp?ref=1653
The short answer is that the Navy feels it is meeting its officer recruiting goals without a mass media campaign.
http://www.cnrc.navy.mil/sanfrancisco/opo/general-information.htm
The Army and Marines aren't meeting their officer recruiting goals, but a mass media campaign would come at a

DEVGRU

they dont advertise those programs, they dont want people to join soley to recieve money for college, they want motivated individuals to join based on desire to serve and then they are willing to reward those individuals with college assistance, they are not the army, basing recruiting methods on the presumption that the individual will recieve free college attracts the wrong individuals, those that could careless about being there and are only there to get a handout. The marines offers programs called MECEP and PLC that helps greatly with college but they do not advertize these programs and you need to have enlisted and proved your commitment to the corps before they allow you to enter, do not join soley for college money, join to serve and if you get free college, then its a nice benefit.

Also, the 9/11 GI Bill just went into effect, that bill states that any perosn serving for atleast 3 years active duty after 9/11 will be granted 4 years college tuition at the most expensive state school tuition rate in their state of residence.

Mrsjvb

because its not something that is advertised heavily nor is it a major path to Commissioning. it is only open to those in their last 2 years of college and other restrictions do apply.

I had a friend go through it. its a sweet deal if you can get it..paid as an E5 , accruing Leave while finishing up the degree prior to attending OCS.

ziplo

mmmmmm

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