Budget cuts affect ROTC

Of the 40 freshman cadets that began the year in the Princeton ROTC program — which includes students from The College of New Jersey, Rider University and Rowan University — only 17 will be contracted during their junior year, when the program usually grants contracts guaranteeing the cadet a job as an officer in the Army.

The limit on contracted cadets in the Princeton ROTC program is due to the limited number of positions available in the United States Army, according to Michael Groff, the battalion scholarship and enrollment officer for Princeton ROTC. Princeton’s ROTC program is not recognized by the University.

“We have a limited number of cadets we can contract with each graduating class, so not every cadet participating in the program will be able to serve in the Army; not all of them plan to,” Groff noted in an email.

Groff explained in an interview that in the past ROTC had been able to surpass this quota. However, with the reduction of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army no longer has “the need or capacity to give all those extra lieutenants jobs in the Army,” Groff said.

The large number of freshmen in the ROTC program indicates the general increase in membership of the ROTC program, he added, noting that the program has had almost 50 percent growth.

“With that, though, comes this challenge. We only have so many people we can take,” he said. “It’s sort of like a varsity team — not everyone makes the cut.”

Students tend to be assessed based on their grade point average, their Modified Army Physical Fitness Test, their officer potential and overall performance in the program, Groff said. Contracted cadets are commissioned by U.S. Army Cadet Command and serve in the Army as an officer for at least four years upon graduation from college.

University students who received ROTC high school scholarships are guaranteed a contracted spot in the ROTC program. However, though the funding cuts have not played a role in the number of cadets they can commission, they have affected the number of four-year and three-year scholarships the ROTC Program offers each year, Peter Knight, Lieutenant Colonel and director of the Army Officer Education Program, explained in an email. The four-year and three-year scholarships are given to high school seniors and college freshmen, respectively, based on physical fitness, SAT scores and GPA.

“Given the new budget guidance from the federal government, Army ROTC faces some budget cuts, as do most parts of the Army,” Knight said. “As a result the number of four-year scholarship and three-year scholarship allocations will be fewer than in previous years. Here at Princeton we have a program to aid students who do not have national four-year and three-year scholarships from the military services,” he explained.

Students will still be able to earn scholarships through The Alumni and Friends of Princeton ROTC organization and the Guthrie Fund, which provides financial assistance to students without a scholarship who wish to be commissioned upon graduation, Knight said.

Knight noted that the Guthrie Fund’s principal aim is to provide eligible students with a scholarship equivalent to the ROTC scholarship for the students’ service, which is traditionally full tuition plus a monthly stipend and book allowances. For now, Knight determines the amount of expendable funds to be distributed to each eligible student.

Groff said the stricter limit on the number of cadets that can be contracted does not have anything to do with the budget cuts, however, and noted that a few students have already left the program for various reasons.

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Jasmine Race ’15, a freshman who voluntarily left the program, said in an email that she had a very positive and instructive experience in the Princeton ROTC program but explained that she left to focus on her academics as a premedical student.

“My decision was not influenced by funding cuts, but that is not to say my leaving didn’t ease the decisions the cadre have to make this term,” Race said, referring to the limited number of spots left for a larger freshman class.

Groff said that he expects the nationwide decrease in the demand for soldiers and the steady stream of applicants will help the ROTC programs improve the quality of their contracted cadets. He noted that the funding cuts were an inevitable step to reducing the United States’ combat operations overseas.

“We’re not looking at this as a bad thing necessarily. It allows us to focus on quality rather than quantity,” Groff said. “Not that we focused on quantity before, but obviously when there are a limited number of spots and a larger pool of people to pick from, you’re going to get the best of the best. Given the job of an Army officer, that’s a good thing.”