Paying for College in the New Economy

If you are a high school student, or the parent of one, and you know how you are going to pay for College you are in the minority. Ever increasing tuition and room and board costs are making it more and more difficult to come out of school without a large debt to go along with your new degree. Students can get several small scholarships, do work study and have part time jobs to help off-set the costs but unfortunately that will barely scratch the surface. So, how do students get through school with zero debt and have a guaranteed job that pays close to $50,000 per year? The Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) is the answer.

ROTC is obviously not for everyone. Students who choose to apply for ROTC scholarships need to have a desire to be an Army Officer or be willing to be an Army Officer long enough to fulfill the commitment required by the scholarship. In addition to accepting the fact that you are essentially joining the Army you also need to be physically fit. Each year about 20,000 students apply for a ROTC scholarship and only about a quarter of them will receive it. Those students who are lucky enough to be among the chosen few will not pay a penny of tuition during their college career and may not have to pay for room and board, depending on the school they choose to attend. So how does a student apply for an ROTC scholarship, what do scholarship recipients receive and what is expected of Cadets? The information below refers specifically to Niagara University in Western New York but, it will generally applicable to any school in the country with a few exceptions.

How to Apply

The Army ROTC scholarship can be applied for starting as early as January of your junior year of high school but, the application must be started no later than January 1st of your senior year. The application is done online at www.goarmy.com/rotc. An interview needs to be conducted with an Officer from any nearby ROTC department but the majority of the scholarship application can be completed online. The four major components required for the application to be complete are high school transcripts, SAT/ACT score, Officer Interview and a fitness test (either the presidential fitness test given at your high school or an Army Physical Fitness Test done at a College ROTC program).

Niagara University has an overnight visit program for high school seniors, offered throughout the school year, which will facilitate applicants getting their interview and fitness test done as well as exposing the student to ROTC life. The enrollment officers at Niagara also ensure that an applicant's scholarship has been looked over, is not missing anything and portrays the applicant in the best possible light.

What Do Scholarship Recipients Receive

The Army ROTC Scholarship pays for either full tuition or full room and board for all four years of school. In addition to that students receive $600 per semester to use towards books (any extra money after books are paid for is for the student to keep). There is also a stipend that is paid incrementally depending on the year of school. Freshmen receive $300 a month for the ten months they are in school, sophomores get $350, juniors receive $450 and seniors get $500 a month for ten months.

Some schools, including Niagara, offer a full room and board scholarship to any student receiving an Army ROTC scholarship. This is a benefit that is school dependent and typically only seen at private schools. With all of the money in the previous paragraph, and the room and board scholarship that is included, the ROTC scholarship is worth slightly over $160,000 at Niagara University. If that's not enough, all students who complete the ROTC program commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Army. They have a guaranteed job after graduation that pays $32,000 a year in base pay, about $12,000 a year in housing allowances (based on the rate for your location) and includes free medical and dental coverage. This is well over $50,000 in benefits for someone who just graduated from college.

What is Expected of Cadets

A scholarship recipient has an eight year obligation when they enter the military upon graduating from college. This obligation can be served in a variety of ways. New Lieutenants can spend their entire 8 years in the active duty Army; they can do 3 years active service followed by 5 years in the National Guard or Army Reserve; they can do any combination of those two with active service being 3 or more years or, they can serve the entire 8 years in the National Guard or Reserve. Cadets who select the last option do not receive the same pay after completing college because they are only working for the Army one weekend a month.

While they are in school Cadets are expected to attend physical training 3 to 5 times per week, come to a leadership lab once a week and attend a class each semester. The class is like any other college class and is counted as credits towards their degree.

Army ROTC is an outstanding program that a lot of students aren't aware of. The financial benefits, outstanding training and guaranteed job after school are very enticing benefits for someone who has considered military service in the past. For three years of active duty service seems like a pretty good trade off for having school fully paid for and starting your life debt free.

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below and I will be happy to answer.

Resources
www.goarmy.com/rotc