The challenge of all challenges...

[marshall]

I agree getting "your guys" to take interest in college is difficult. I know by experience in the Navy, the upper leadership (enlisted) doesn't really care if your taking college or not, most of the kakis have advanced without any college at all, especially in my community. One thing i have found to be a complete show stopper is the way the Navy places it's sailors via evaluation points. Depending on the command, college may/may not pull much weight. I am currently on shore instructor duty. There is no better time to knock out school, but getting the guys that have never been out to the fleet to realize that is the difficult part. I have 116 college credits, all gained within the past 13 months, all from an accredited college. I am placed lower than guys via eval points all because they have seniority at the command, with less quals and lower motivation. This is very common, at least my experiences are. Instead of awarding your best guy with the good points, the points are given to sailors on their way out of the command!! This sucks for the hard chargers. One thing to remember is this is a big boys game. As a leader, all we can do is offer them the water, it's their choice to drink it. The best thing we can do is provide positive examples of what hard work provides. For me, it's going Officer. I've had a crappy enlisted experience and i blame a lot of it on the good-guys E-7 and above club. ****One thing I will put out to everyone is that the Navy College office will allow sailors to use Tuition Assistance for unaccredited colleges. With any military career, these credits will often have to be transfer into another college. Many times the unaccredited credits do not count!!! Be aware, there is an extremely high ranking person affiliated with the navy undergoing investigation right now because of this. Not particularly their fault, just a little uneducated on their education. Hope this info helps at least one junior member out there. Hooyah Deep Sea!!

[cookderosa]

I know it's not free for civilians, but I have an equally difficult time getting my college-attending students to take a CLEP. They need gen ed credits, and for many of them, it is SO inconvienient since they are enrolled in a working apprenticeship program- they already work 40 hours and attend our classes full time, so to go to campus 3x week for English is very hard - I encourage them to take CLEP but they don't!:confused:

[Professor_Adam]

I know it's not free for civilians, but I have an equally difficult time getting my college-attending students to take a CLEP. They need gen ed credits, and for many of them, it is SO inconvienient since they are enrolled in a working apprenticeship program- they already work 40 hours and attend our classes full time, so to go to campus 3x week for English is very hard - I encourage them to take CLEP but they don't!:confused:

You know I think with a lot of people there's a certain intimidation factor simply because they aren't familiar with the CLEP. However, if options like this were better explained --beginning in high school -- I think things would be different. I've tried to educate as many Soldiers as I can about this and it's been helpful, but it has also been a long and slow process.

[HawkGuy]

One thing to remember is this is a big boys game. As a leader, all we can do is offer them the water, it's their choice to drink it. The best thing we can do is provide positive examples of what hard work provides.

That's how I see it too. Right now is the time to be whatever you want to be in the military. Officer, Pilot, Special Forces, Seal, whatever. But if they don't want it, there's always someone else who will.

[caitlyn4321]

I'm out of the military now, but I'm still on a base and its almost impossible for me to get time at the ed office since some commander here is giving out passes for passes My next on base test is the end of feb and I scheduled early jan. The sched was gridlocked once they did that. I'm going out to a CC to test now.