Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the management and the operations of three Department of Defense (DOD) service academies, focusing on the: (1) academies' cost-reporting systems; (2) academic programs; (3) assignment, performance, and retention of academy graduates; and (4) effectiveness of external oversight.
GAO found that: (1) in fiscal year (FY) 1989, the reported costs per graduate were $228,500 at the Military Academy, $153,200 at the Naval Academy, and $225,500 at the Air Force Academy, and were 3 to 4 times more expensive than the average cost per graduate from the Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship program and 8 to 15 times more expensive than an Officer Candidate School or Officer Training School graduate; (2) since no uniform guidance existed regarding academy cost-reporting, academies' financial reports were erroneous and did not include all relevant costs, resulting in an understatement of costs by a total of about $37 million for FY 1989; (3) many military instructors at the academies lacked the academic credentials and the teaching experience of their civilian counterparts at comparable institutions; (4) the military status of instructors made them subject to duty rotation, contributing to continuous faculty turnover and an annual influx of inexperienced teachers; (5) the considerable time demands of military and physical training left students with inadequate time to pursue academic excellence; (6) although academy graduates tend to stay in the service longer and progress at a faster rate than other officers, less than half of the academy graduates stayed in the service for a full career, and were represented in disproportionate numbers at flag rank; and (7) DOD and the services lack an effective system for overseeing academy management and operations.
