Improving the Air Force Civilian Graduate Education System Through Increased Use of External Funding for PhD Candidates

Each year, the Air Force sends scores of officers to civilian universities to earn doctoral degrees. This is a significant monetary investment, involving millions of dollars in tuition as well as the larger cost of the officers' salary during their time in school. This paper argues that the Air Force could better capitalize on its educational investments by increasing the standard time allowed for a doctoral program from three years to four and one-half years, doing away with the prerequisite of a master's degree, and systematizing the use of external assistantships, grants, and fellowships to pay for tuition. These changes would have several benefits, including cost savings for the Air Force, a richer educational experience for the individual, and higher completion rates. By bringing its practices closer to civilian norms, the Air Force can also better position its officers for entrance into and success at higher-quality institutions. This paper provides an overview of the current Air Force system for graduate education resource allocation and summarizes relevant data on completion rates, sponsoring agencies, funding, and institutional quality indicators for recent doctoral graduates. Using this context, the likely ramifications of the proposed changes (both benefits and risks) are then considered.