Research for Bootcamp Attrition

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Emerging Issues In USMC Recruiting: Comparing Relative Attrition Risk Among Marine Corps Recruits
August 1, 2006
As the Armed Services continue to fight the Long War, recruiting conditions are likely to remain tough. With this in mind, we examine recent trends in Marine Corps bootcamp attrition, using both year-to-date attrition and cohort attrition rates. In addition, we document which bundles of recruit characteristics observable at the time of enlistment are associated with the completion of bootcamp. We then compare the relative attrition risk of recruits given their individual characteristics. We find that the recruits who pose the lowest attrition risk: sign contracts as high school seniors, ship in June through September or October through January, are high quality (i.e., Tier I and Category I-IIIAs), and meet the weight-for-height retention standard.
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Emerging Issues in USMC Recruiting: Assessing the Success of Cat. IV Recruits in the Marine Corps
August 1, 2006
Given increasingly difficult recruiting conditions, we examine the feasibility of raising the Marine Corps’ self-imposed cap of 1 percent on Category IV accessions. We limit our analysis to top Category IVAs (Cat. IVAs)–those scoring between 26 and 31 on the AFQT who are high school degree graduates. We use the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 to analyze the national population of Cat. IVAs. We find that the population of top Cat. IVAs is large enough to support an increase in the accession cap. Then, using CNA accession cohort data, we compare the attrition rates of top Cat. IVAs to bottom Cat. IIIB (AFQT between 31 and 41 and high school degree graduates) and Adult Education/ 1 Semester college recruits. Top Cat. IVAs have attrition rates, both from bootcamp and from the first term of service, similar to those of bottom Cat. IIIBs. We also find that Top Cat. IVA Marines have lower attrition than Adult Education/ 1 Semester College Marines.
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