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Show A Unique Partnership Our Nation's Colleges and Our Armed Forces Know anyone looking for both an education and on-the-job training? An innovative in-novative proposal by the head of one of our prestigious presti-gious universities could be of interest. Dr. M. Richard Rose, president of Rochester Institute Insti-tute of Technology (RIT), maintains that our all-volunteer army would be in better shape if it formed an innovative innova-tive partnership with our nation's colleges and universities. univer-sities. Rose, a former deputy assistant Secretary of Defense De-fense for Education, believes that educational, not economic, econo-mic, incentives, should be made the chief attraction for joining our armed forces. He proposes that an alternative al-ternative to higher pay and allowances would be a program pro-gram in which young men and women earn educational education-al credits through full-time and reserve service. Rose envisions a program in which an individual would enlist for a given period of time, perhaps six months, for initial recruit training and entry-level skill training. In return, the individual would receive an educational "entitlement" of one school year, which he or she could use while remaining in the active reserve. Subsequently, the individual would return to active duty for additional addition-al training and service. This Making educational incentives incen-tives rather than economic incentives the chief attraction attrac-tion for revitalizing the army could be mora cost effective. would earn additional entitlements, enti-tlements, perhaps one year of educational entitlement for one year of service time. Making education the top incentive in a military program would not be extraordinarily ex-traordinarily costly and would simultaneously solve our intermediate and long-term long-term military manpower problems, improve the quality qual-ity of our armed forces, and pull the active and reserve military forces together, RIT's Rose believes. Designed to benefit the armed forces and the higher education community as well as the private sector, the Rose plan has been proposed pro-posed to members of Congress, Con-gress, military experts in manpower procurement, and representatives of higher education and industry. |