Close the Military Academies . . .

[redcliffsw]

Unlike most public colleges and  universities that are "only" subsidized to the tune of 40-70 percent (not counting the subsidy within the student loan programs), and where students must nonetheless pay the difference in tuition, the military academies are 100 percent taxpayer funded. Moreover, they are subject to no serious oversight and no one asks if any of them achieve their stated goals of churning out the country's most educated and brilliant students.

Far from being rigorous academic institutions, the academies are places for job training that turn out people who by graduation have already been living completely off the taxpayer for years, and who are likely to go the next couple of decades without ever holding a job in the private sector or being a net tax payer.

The academies function as propaganda mills for military "tradition" and exist to turn out a new generation of influential government employees who will call for even more money to be spent on their alma maters.  The academies also provide a nice safe environment for politicians to go and be bathed in the adulation of their subordinates and political supporters, such as when George W. Bush traveled to the Air Force Academy to chest bump cadets.

Yesterday in Salon, Bruce Fleming, a member of the Naval Academy faculty, nicely described just what a boondoggle these institutions are:

And on:
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/05/lets_abolish_west_point_military_academies_serve_no_one_squander_millions_of_tax_dollars/