Military Education

A variety of constraints--physical, financial, and environmental--make it unlikely that military academies, with the exception of the Air Force Academy, will be able to absorb additional professional military education institutions. All three academies are at or over capacity for classroom and dormitory facilities, and both the Army and Navy Academies have very little land on which to build additional facilities. Because the services differ in how they interpret the definition of professional military education as defined in the Military Education Policy Document, the Joint Chiefs of Staff's guidance for training military service personnel, the Army has ended up with more professional military education schools that could be candidates for consolidation than has the Air Force. GAO identified 32 different schools that conduct 60 different courses; during academic year 1992-93, more than 36,000 students were enrolled at these schools. The cost for providing professional military education in fiscal year 1993 was pegged at about $123 million. This figure includes salaries for instructors and support staff but does not factor in such expenses as student salaries.

GAO found that: (1) opportunities for relocating professional military education institutions at military academies are limited by physical, financial, and environmental constraints; (2) the three academies' classroom and dormitory facilities are at or over capacity and the land available to build additional facilities at the academies is limited; (3) the services' definition of professional military education varies according to their interpretation of the Military Education Policy Document; (4) the Army has more professional military education schools that could be consolidated because its definition of professional military education is broader than the other services and its students are required to take a wider variety of courses; (5) during the 1992 through 1993 academic year, the services' 32 different schools provided 60 different courses for over 36,000 students; and (6) although the projected cost for providing professional military education in fiscal year 1993 totalled $123 million, total education costs are incomplete because student salaries are not accounted for.