ROTC Money Dries Up: Maybe the Alumni Community Can Help?

Message From LTC William Fitch, regarding an email I sent earlier today:

Hi Charles,

Yep, US Army Cadet Command put a moratorium on scholarships on 22 July for any expenditures of scholarship funding for Fiscal Year 2010. The moratorium does not effect scholarships that start next school year (FY 11) and we are awarding 26 of those scholarships (these are 4 year scholarships that are being awarded to current High School Seniors).

The current moratorium was caused by a huge influx of interest in the scholarship this past year. The interest is directly related to the economy. Students need a source of tuition money and many parents can't afford school. The recession has also impacted bank lending and college endowments. Everyone's hurting. So there was a huge rush of students to get an ROTC scholarship and Cadet Command committed all of it's funding by July and now must temporarily cease awarding scholarships until the fiscal situation gets realigned.

ROTC students can still contract without a scholarship and the students will still get stipend money. But that is not realistic for students who are facing tuition costs at high cost private schools. Those students will have to wait until the scholarship money frees up.

As some of you know, I came to CMC thinking I would end up doing Army ROTC. After talking it over with my parents, I decided that I shouldn't do it, without the commitment that they would pay for graduate school. (This was back when I stupidly thought I would be a lawyer.)

Some people suggested that I take a year of ROTC and then walk away from the scholarship so that, at the very least, I could get a year of schooling paid for. (Some people have done this.) To me, this seemed like scamming the taxpayer and didn't seem right and now that I know I could have potentially taken money, however small, from someone who really did want to serve their country, I feel glad that I didn't take the money or the scholarship.

I have tremendous respect for those who decide to join ROTC and thank them for their service. I feel very proud that I go to a college that pays for the room and board of its ROTC students, unlike Pomona and Pitzer, which continue to discriminate against our men (and women) in uniform. I wonder how Pomona's and Pitzer's discussion not to accept any money directly from the Army is affecting those families dealing with the banks....

It strikes me as particularly unfortunate that there isn't any money available for the scholarships for these students. Maybe we can go to the alumni community and raise the money to help those that have contracted, but haven't gotten scholarships?