Policy options for military recruiting in the college market : results from a national survey / Beth Asch, Can Du, Matthias Schonlau.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Asch, Beth J.

Contributor:

National Defense Research Institute (U.S.)

Du, Can, 1957-

Schonlau, Matthias, 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

College students--Employment--United States.

College students.

United States--Armed Forces--Recruiting, enlistment, etc.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 123 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, CA : RAND Corporation, 2004.

Summary:

The armed services prefer to recruit high-quality youth because of their better performance and lower attrition. However, high-quality youth are increasingly interested in attending college. Existing policies targeted toward the college market are likely to continue to be effective, but new policies must be developed to successfully penetrate this market further. This monograph reports on a research project that developed and implemented a national survey of college youth and analyzed the results. The survey offered respondents a series of hypothetical programs that would allow enlistees to attend college before accession into the military, and they were asked to rate their level of enlistment interest under each program. A $65,000 college loan repayment program as part of a "college-before-accession" program had the largest effect on college market youth's probability of expressing a positive propensity to enlist, producing an increase in probability of over 50 percent. The survey also provides corroborating evidence on the importance of college dropouts as a source of high-quality recruits. Allowing college dropouts to enlist directly without first returning to college was associated with a stronger stated enlistment interest. In addition to programs such as loan repayment as part of a "college-before-accession" program, the authors conclude that if the services are to be successful in the college market, they must have in place an appropriate management infrastructure-such as incentive mechanisms for recruiters and an advertising campaign that supports recruiters' efforts.

Contents:

Preliminaries; Preface; The RAND Corporation Quality Assurance Process; Contents; Figures and Tables; Summary; Approach; Results on Policy Effectiveness; Result on Cost-Effectiveness; Th e Role of Recruiter Eff ort and a College Recruitment Infrastructure; Acknowledgments; List of Abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Survey Questionnaire; 3. Survey Design and Design Assessment; 4. Modeling Recruiting Policy Effects on Youth Enlistment Interest; 5. Characteristics and General Attitudes of College Market Youth; 6. Estimated Effects of Recruiting Policies on Enlistment Interest. 7. Estimates of the Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative College-Before-Accession Programs8. Conclusions and Policy Implications; Appendices; References

ISBN:

1-59875-204-9