ROTC is the largest of the three major officer commissioning programs for DOD. The other two major commissioning officer sources include the military service academies and Officer Candidate Schools/Officer Training School. As shown in figure 1, in fiscal year 2012, the ROTC program produced nearly half of all the newly commissioned active duty officers from the three major commissioning sources. ROTC programs prepare college and university students to serve as officers in the military services. The program was established by the National Defense Act of 1916 to supplement the military academies in preparing selected students for commissioned military service and to provide officers for the reserve forces. The services organize their ROTC programs into administrative units and assign a command structure, including a commanding officer, to each unit. In addition to a commanding officer, each ROTC unit has additional staff assigned to the unit, including enlisted and officer personnel, and for Army and Navy, civilian personnel. Table 1 below provides specific information about military and civilian personnel assigned to ROTC units for each service. The ROTC units are spread across the country, as represented in figure 2. Most states have a unit from each service located within the state and all states have at least one unit located within the state. Each unit may support students at more than one school. Typically, in these cases, the unit’s command staff is assigned to the school that has been designated as the host, and students travel from their affiliate school to the host unit for their ROTC activities. The Navy maintains 12 ROTC units in which the command structure and ROTC activities are divided between more than one host school. Naval ROTC refers to these as consortium units. This typically happens no later than the junior year, prior to the service’s advanced ROTC training. regarding ROTC. The services’ headquarters determine the number of newly commissioned officers needed annually to support the services’ congressionally mandated end strength requirements for military personnel by considering beginning strength, losses, and transfers. They also provide guidance on the number of officers expected from each officer commissioning program, including ROTC. To meet the requirements set by service headquarters, the military services typically operate ROTC programs using a 5-year production cycle, beginning the year prior to school entry and culminating in the graduation year. ROTC’s relevance extends beyond its quantitative production capability. ROTC supports the concept of a citizen-soldier and the all-volunteer force with its potential to provide officers from a variety of backgrounds and experiences available within the student population on a college or university campus. ROTC also provides a method of military outreach and contact with the public. By statute, at least one ROTC unit must be established and maintained in each state if certain conditions are met. The military services’ ROTC programs each came within a few percentage points of meeting or exceeding the annual officer production goals that they established to meet their respective authorized end strengths. However, each service reported that various factors may affect their ability to meet these goals, and that they have faced challenges commissioning officers for certain occupational specialties. In addition, half of all ROTC units did not produce the minimum average annual production of officers over a 5-year period required by DOD to justify investment in an ROTC unit. In fiscal years 2008 through 2012, each service came within a few percentage points of meeting or exceeding its overall ROTC officer production goals for newly commissioned officers. The military services annually issue guidance that specifies goals for the number and types of officers that their respective ROTC programs need to produce to meet their current authorized end strength as well as future needs that are projected over a 5-year period. For the 5 years we reviewed, fiscal years 2008 through 2012, the Army’s ROTC program goal for newly commissioned officers ranged from 4,500 to 5,350; the Navy’s goal, which includes officers for the Marine Corps, ranged from 1,163 to 1,387; and the Air Force’s goal ranged from 1,788 to 1,940. The services generally met these overall production goals for newly commissioned officers. Specifically, as shown in table 2 below, the Army met at least 95 percent of its goal, the Navy met at least 91 percent of its goal, and the Air Force met at least 96 percent of its goal during this period. Furthermore, the Army and the Air Force each exceeded their production goals for 3 of the 5 years we studied. Table 2 shows the production goal, actual production, and the percent of the goal met by each service for fiscal years 2008 through 2012. Service officials told us that they manage ROTC enrollments, contract offers, and scholarship awards to help ensure that they reach but do not significantly exceed their officer production goals. In the event that an over- or underproduction of officers is anticipated, each service correspondingly adjusts the number of people they plan to admit into future classes at their respective Officer Candidate School or, in the case of the Air Force, Officer Training School. Neither OSD nor the services have established performance measures that provide a comprehensive understanding of the overall effectiveness and efficiency of ROTC programs. Specifically, current measures do not take into account a service’s investment in a particular ROTC unit, and are not clearly defined to help ensure that they are objectively applied. In addition, over the past decade, the services have conducted a total of 11 evaluations to identify units for consolidation or closure. However, the evaluations have largely occurred on an ad hoc basis and are narrowly focused on assessing the productivity of individual ROTC units, rather than the overall performance of the program. Furthermore, although the services’ evaluations of ROTC units yielded recommendations for consolidation or closures, no closures have occurred as a result. DOD’s management of ROTC programs is hampered by not having performance measures that provide a comprehensive understanding of the overall cost-effectiveness and efficiency of ROTC programs. Key attributes of successful performance measures include clearly defined, comprehensive measures that enable an organization to evaluate accomplishments, make decisions, and balance competing priorities. DOD’s instruction specifies five factors for the military services to consider before closing a unit, including, the (1) quality of the officers produced by the unit, (2) operations and maintenance cost of maintaining the unit, (3) numbers of officers produced to meet service commissioning goals from categories that are difficult to achieve, (4) number of officers produced by the unit, and (5) number and location of units in an area or state where the unit being considered for closure resides. However, several of these factors, which officials told us are the measures they currently use to assess the programs, are not clearly defined. Specifically, DOD’s instruction directs the services to consider the quality of officers produced by a unit that is being evaluated for closure. However, the instruction does not include guidance on how the services should define and assess quality, which could lead to the inconsistent application of the measure by the services. Another example is that DOD’s instruction directs the services to consider the geographic representation of ROTC units. However, the instruction does not describe how concentrated the ROTC presence in an area or state should be, which could lead the services to under- or over-emphasize the relative importance of an ROTC unit to a particular area. Furthermore, DOD’s instruction requires officer production from each unit to be adequate to justify DOD investment and generally requires ROTC units to produce a 5-year average of 15 officers annually to remain viable. However, DOD’s production requirement does not take into account a service’s investment in a particular ROTC unit because it does not account for cost-related factors, such as the differences in the cost of tuition for public and private colleges or for in-state and out-of-state students. Moreover, the tuition cost difference is not insignificant, with college tuition for some schools costing six times more than the annual average in-state tuition of about $7,100 for a 4-year college or university. Despite the significant variance in tuition, all ROTC units are subject to the same numerical production requirement regardless of the actual cost each service incurs at a particular college or university. Because such cost data are not consistently accounted for, it is not clear how the production requirement can be used to justify DOD’s investment. The absence of clearly defined measures also affects the objectivity of DOD’s unit closure consideration factors because it requires the services to subjectively determine how each factor should be defined and applied. Further, these determinations can change over time without explanation. For example, we reviewed the methodologies used by each service to identify units for potential closure and found that, in addition to the five factors to consider before closing a unit, two of the services incorporated additional factors into the closure consideration process. For example, in fiscal year 2012, the Navy included the U.S. News and World Report ranking of the schools associated with the units as 1 of 12 factors in its closure considerations, and the Air Force included “strategic partnerships” as an important consideration. However, neither service identified specifically how these factors correlate to the factors in DOD’s instruction, defined how these factors contribute to a service-specific need, or explained why these factors were added to the 2012 analysis. In comments on a draft of this report, Navy officials pointed out that the U.S. News and World report ranking correlates to the quality of applicants to the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, a specific Navy officer accession requirement. However it is not clear specifically how the Navy made that correlation, nor why the Navy added this ranking for its 2012 review. We recognize that the services need some flexibility to prioritize factors on the basis of their individual needs for newly commissioned officers, but inconsistent measurements limit the services’ ability to compare program progress, results, and efficiency over time. We reviewed service policies for ROTC programs and likewise found no additional guidance on how to define or apply the closure consideration factors in DOD’s instruction. Although the Army regulation specifies a process for categorizing potential closures, Army officials told us that the disestablishment categories specified in the regulation have not been used for years because, according to officials, the process was too time consuming. The variability of the factors used in considering ROTC units for closure hinders the services’ efforts to compare evaluation results over time, even within a single service. Until clearly defined and comprehensive performance measures are established to evaluate overall program performance, the services will have limited information available about their ROTC programs’ overall progress toward their goals. In the absence of fully developed performance measures, the military services have evaluated aspects of their respective ROTC programs. However, the evaluations are not routine and systematic and have not yielded closures that service officials believe are needed. Our prior work has shown that results-oriented program management practices include routine program evaluations, which are a key source of information about how well a program is working and whether it is achieving its intended results. Further, these practices indicate that a body of evidence is more valuable to decision makers than a single study; multiple studies with similar results strengthen confidence in their conclusions. The military services’ ROTC programs have, over the past decade, conducted a total of 11 evaluations—largely driven by the need to produce cost-savings to help offset DOD’s near-term budget shortfalls— to identify ROTC units that could potentially be consolidated or closed. These evaluations have provided the services with some useful information on the performance of ROTC programs, but they have largely occurred on an ad hoc basis because the services have not established a systematic process to routinely evaluate ROTC program performance using comprehensive performance measures. For example, service officials told us that the Army conducted 3 evaluations over 6 years; the Navy conducted 4 evaluations over 3 years; and the Air Force conducted 4 evaluations over 8 years on production of officers by individual ROTC units. These evaluations provided information about individual ROTC unit performance, with a focus on officer production. However, the evaluations did not assess the overall ROTC program against strategic goals and objectives. Our prior work has shown that leading organizations that have progressed toward results-oriented management use performance information to identify gaps in performance, to improve organizational processes, and to improve their performance by aligning measures with the goals and objectives at each level of the organization. Further, the commitment of managers to results-oriented management is critical to the increased use of performance information that could be measured against ROTC program goals and objectives to influence policy and program decisions. In addition, this commitment could be demonstrated by their willingness and ability to make decisions and manage programs on the basis of results, and to inspire others to embrace such a model. Without routine evaluations that measure progress toward strategic goals and objectives, decision makers cannot determine the cost-effectiveness or efficiency of ROTC programs over time and cannot reliably identify trends in program performance. Furthermore, without DOD guidance for comprehensive evaluations of ROTC programs, each service’s program managers developed a service’s own methodology to evaluate the productivity of ROTC units. Each service’s methodology varies based on their chosen combination of factors from DOD’s instruction, and how they are prioritized. As we previously noted, DOD Instruction 1215.08 requires the military services to consider the operation and maintenance cost of maintaining ROTC units that are being evaluated for productivity and possibly considered for closure. However, we reviewed the methodologies used by each service to evaluate unit productivity and found that the operations and maintenance costs of ROTC units were not routinely considered in their evaluations. Specifically, in recent evaluations of unit productivity, the Army and the Air Force did not consider any ROTC costs, and the Navy considered only the cost of tuition. As a result, the services may be using results of incomplete evaluations to draw conclusions about unit performance. Table 5 further details the methodologies used by each service in recent assessments of unit productivity. Moreover, although the services’ evaluations of ROTC units yielded recommendations for consolidation or closures, no closures have occurred as a result. DOD Instruction 1215.08 specifies that the Secretaries of the military departments shall, among other things, establish, operate, and disestablish ROTC units, and that the decision to disestablish a ROTC unit is the prerogative of the Secretary of the military department concerned. Although DOD guidance specifies service Secretary responsibilities for and the authority to close ROTC units, service officials told us that recommended closures and consolidations have not been acted on because some senior service officials have concluded that it is easier to maintain underproductive ROTC units than attempt to secure the congressional support needed for their closure. Importantly, DOD’s instruction gives service Secretaries discretion on which units to close. However, until the services conduct routine evaluations of ROTC programs that are based on a comprehensive set of performance measures, the programs risk having more units than needed or units that are not most effectively located to meet service goals for their officers. OSD and the military services are generally assigned responsibility for conducting oversight of ROTC programs. Although the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness conducts some oversight functions such as setting policy, DOD’s Instruction 1215.08 does not specify department-level review of performance measures. Further, services do not consistently communicate with key stakeholders, such as members of Congress and schools, about performance of ROTC programs, except when closure decisions are being considered. This has contributed to difficulty gaining political support for such closures. ROTC programs are governed by both DOD and service-level guidance. Key attributes of results-oriented program management include the cascading of goals and objectives throughout an organization and aligning performance measures with the objectives from the executive level down to the operational level. In addition, internal control standards require that management sets and monitors these objectives and that these responsibilities should be appropriately documented. At the department level, the purpose of DOD Instruction 1215.08 is to establish policy, assign responsibilities, and prescribe procedures for DOD oversight of ROTC. The instruction assigns responsibility for these actions to the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Secretaries of the military services. Specifically, DOD Instruction 1215.08 tasks the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness with establishing policy and providing implementing guidance, resolving matters of conflict among the services that are operating ROTC units, approving methodologies for closure in coordination with the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), and receiving annual reports on costs and budget for service ROTC programs.does not specify responsibilities for the Under Secretary to conduct oversight related to monitoring performance of ROTC programs against goals and objectives using performance measures. However, DOD’s instruction Further, we found that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness is not fully implementing oversight responsibilities that exist in guidance. While the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness has established DOD’s policy related to ROTC in DOD Instruction 1215.08, and officials from that office told us that they resolve conflicts among the services related to ROTC, the officials acknowledged that they do not conduct the other oversight activities specified in guidance. First, OSD officials told us that they do not review and approve the services’ methodologies for proposed unit closures because they see it as encroaching on the services’ authority to man, train, and equip their respective forces. Given that DOD Instruction 1215.08 requires this approval, which is to occur when a military department proposes closure of a particular unit it is difficult to understand how this methodology approval function, in connection with a proposed decision of a military service, could be viewed as an encroachment. Moreover, DOD officials did not further elaborate on or provide additional support for their position that approving a methodology, as set forth in the DOD instruction, is not an appropriate oversight function to be performed at the department level. In light of the ad hoc reviews by the services noted earlier in this report, such oversight by the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness that is clearly delineated in guidance could support efforts to improve the consistency of the services’ application of performance measures and evaluations. Second, OSD officials told us that they stopped enforcing a requirement for annual reports from the services identifying the cost and budget for their respective ROTC programs—even though the officials viewed those reports as useful in facilitating oversight—in response to the department’s efficiency initiatives, which removed reporting requirements related to internally generated oversight reports. To regain some of the information on program visibility that it no longer obtains through the reports, OSD officials told us that they instead use data from service budget submissions to estimate ROTC program cost data that is less specific than the data that were previously obtained through the services’ automatic submission of these reports. Moreover, because they receive the data after it is submitted for the budget, there is little opportunity for the office to make changes or affect future management decisions. In addition, as noted previously, the DOD and service-level guidance provide performance measures that do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the overall cost-effectiveness and efficiency of ROTC programs. With (1) the absence of OSD following some requirements in existing guidance, and (2) weaknesses we identified in performance measures in both OSD and service guidance, it is unclear how OSD and the services will each conduct effective oversight of ROTC programs. The military services have had difficulty gaining buy-in for recommendations to close dozens of underproductive ROTC units collectively across the services, in part because they do not have an effective strategy for communicating with stakeholders such as Congress or school administrators about ROTC program performance. Stakeholder involvement is an important strategy that we have identified in our past work to facilitate agencies’ use of evaluations in program management and policy making. Stakeholder involvement is best facilitated when organizations reach out early to gain buy-in, engage in regular communication, and build trusting relationships—even when faced with the possibility that political or ideological concerns may override evaluation findings in decision making. In addition, our past work has shown that key elements of a results-oriented oversight framework include communicating results and using performance information to make decisions for improvement. As previously noted, the military services collectively have conducted 11 assessments of unit productivity in the past 10 years—all of which have produced proposals recommending selected ROTC units for consolidation or closure. However, no closures have occurred as a result. The military services have been unsuccessful in completing any of these politically sensitive consolidations or closures in part because and prior the services do not proactively and periodically engage congressional stakeholders on ROTC program performance. Specifically, service officials told us that DOD Instruction 1215.08 does not require congressional notification about ROTC program performance and that the decision to close units is the prerogative of the Secretary of the military department concerned. Nonetheless, as a courtesy, the services have, in the past, provided Congress with a list of units that are being recommended for consolidation or closure. Furthermore, OSD officials stated that the lack of closures in successive rounds of assessments of unit viability is producing a growing backlog of underproductive units. As a result, service officials acknowledged that this increasing number of underproductive ROTC units may make congressional acceptance of all the closures at one time difficult to achieve. We have previously reported on the department’s lack of reporting and communication of ROTC program performance. For example, in our 1973 and 1977 reports we found that the services’ reporting to DOD and Congress were inadequate to make necessary judgments on ROTC program effectiveness. Additionally, in follow-on reports on ROTC and officer commissioning programs in 1991 and 1993, we found that DOD and the services had not made any significant progress in improving their ability to report ROTC program performance. established at a college or university, school administrators have to agree to various requirements, to include granting the academic rank of professor to the senior commissioned officer assigned to the program at that institution and adopting the military coursework for ROTC into its curriculum. Further, DOD Instruction 1215.08 requires the military services—prior to recommending a unit for consolidation or closure—to advise schools whose ROTC units are not producing enough officers to justify investment, and to work closely with those schools to restore officer production to acceptable levels. However, the military services do not consistently adhere to this requirement, and thus may be missing important opportunities to build awareness about the ROTC program and to leverage the support of schools in meeting annual production goals. For example, Army and Navy officials told us that they currently do not regularly communicate with school administrators about the level of officer production at their respective college or university. In contrast, Air Force officials told us that they provide written notification annually to participating colleges and universities on their level of officer production. Until the military services establish a formal strategy to communicate with key stakeholders on ROTC program performance, the military services will find it difficult to obtain the support that is needed to make the necessary changes to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of ROTC programs. While ROTC programs continue to be the largest and most important source of newly commissioned officers for DOD, they do so with a structure where half of the units do not meet DOD’s production requirements. Further, service efforts to revise this inefficient structure are hampered by performance measures that are not clearly defined, allow for inconsistent application of factors for closure, and do not provide a comprehensive understanding of programs’ efficiency or cost- effectiveness. Moreover, the department’s management approach has not required routine program evaluations and this has led to ad hoc analyses that present challenges in supporting unit closure recommendations. Clearly defined and comprehensive performance measures and routine evaluations using these measures against strategic goals and objectives would give OSD and the services tools to identify, collect, and evaluate a range of relevant performance information for their ROTC programs. This information, particularly when available over a period of time, would allow OSD and the services to recognize the programs’ accomplishments, balance competing priorities, and address the retention or disestablishment of underproductive units. Effective oversight and regular communication with stakeholders are critical to the program’s effectiveness and continued success. Clear lines of responsibility when combined with performance measures provide leadership and decision makers with the transparency and authority required to make difficult decisions about the program. In addition, communication with key stakeholders, such as Congress and school administrators, about ROTC performance is important to raising awareness about the program and ensuring that program-related decisions can be implemented effectively. To help ensure that OSD, the military services, and congressional decision makers have a comprehensive understanding of whether ROTC programs are achieving desired results in a cost-effective and efficient manner, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, in conjunction with the Secretaries of the military services, to establish a systematic process to routinely evaluate ROTC program performance that includes taking the following three actions: establish performance measures that are clearly defined and require routine evaluations of ROTC programs that measure progress against the strategic goals and objectives of ROTC programs; and use the performance information resulting from ROTC program evaluations to assess and document the need for the existing number of units, To help improve the oversight and accountability of the military services’ ROTC programs, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to take the following three actions: reexamine and clarify DOD Instruction 1215.08 to clearly delineate roles and responsibilities for oversight of ROTC programs; coordinate with the military services to ensure that service ROTC guidance aligns with the updated DOD instruction; and develop and implement, in conjunction with the Secretaries of the military services, a strategy to periodically communicate with Congress and other key stakeholders on ROTC program performance. In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with our six recommendations to make management, oversight, and accountability improvements to ROTC programs. DOD also described steps that it planned to take in response to our recommendations. DOD’s comments are reprinted in appendix IV. DOD also provided technical comments on the draft report, which we incorporated as appropriate. Regarding our first recommendation to establish performance measures that are clearly defined and include cost components, DOD concurred with our recommendation but stated that our report contained a “minor discrepancy” because it did not include the Navy’s explanation of how a particular unit closure consideration factor—outside of those specified in DOD Directive 1215.08—contributed to a service-specific need. Specifically, our draft report noted that, in fiscal year 2012, the Navy included the U.S. News and World Report ranking of the schools affiliated with a Naval ROTC unit as one of twelve factors included in its unit closure consideration process, but that it did not define how its use of this factor correlated to its need for a specific type of officer. We updated the draft to include the Navy’s comment that U.S. News and World Report ranking correlates to the quality of applicants to the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, a specific Navy officer accession requirement. We also clarified that because the services are required to subjectively determine how factors should be applied, these factors can change over time without justification. We therefore continue to believe that these inconsistent measurements limit the services’ ability to compare program progress, results and efficiencies over time. For our other five recommendations, DOD concurred with each of them and estimated actions would be completed by July 2015. We encourage DOD to begin taking actions now to facilitate implementation of these recommendations as soon as possible. We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, the Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and appropriate congressional committees. In addition, this report will also be available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions regarding this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix V. To assess the extent to which the military services’ ROTC programs met goals and minimum requirements for producing officers over a 5-year period, we obtained and analyzed ROTC unit production data from each of the military services for fiscal years 2008 through 2012 and fiscal year 2012 enrollment data. We chose to assess the officer production from each service’s ROTC program for fiscal years 2008 through 2012 because it is the most recently completed 5-year period at the time of our review. We determined the overall productivity of the services’ ROTC programs by comparing the number of ROTC officers produced to the ROTC officer goals as outlined in service-specific guidance for fiscal years 2008 through 2012. Using fiscal year 2012 data found in fiscal year 2014 budget documents and other service documents, we compared overall officer production with other major commissioning sources. We determined the productivity of ROTC units by comparing the average annual production of individual units from fiscal year 2008 through 2012 to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) minimum production requirement in the DOD Instruction for Senior ROTC (DOD Instruction 1215.08)—a minimum of 15 officers a year averaged over 5 years for 4-year schools and a minimum of 7 officers a year averaged over 5 years for 2-year schools. We also analyzed the data provided to determine the degree to which the units are not meeting minimum production requirements and the degree to which the units met minimum production requirements. In particular, we analyzed ROTC officer production data from fiscal years 2008 through 2012 to determine (1) the number and percentage of ROTC units that met and did not meet the DOD minimum production requirement for ROTC officer production and (2) the number and percentage of ROTC units that produced officers in specific ranges of officer production (e.g., fewer than 5, 5 to fewer than 10, 10 to fewer than 15, 15 to fewer than 20, 20 to fewer than 30, etc. to over 50). We also reviewed fiscal year 2012 staff data of military personnel located at each unit provided to us by the military services and DOD’s fiscal year 2012 composite rates to determine the cost of military personnel per each ROTC unit in fiscal year 2012. In addition, we reviewed the fiscal year 2014 budget documentation to identify the average operation and maintenance cost (excluding scholarships) per ROTC unit in fiscal year 2012. We used these data to determine the fiscal year 2012 cost of ROTC units that met and did not meet DOD minimum production requirements for fiscal years 2008 through 2012 .To assess the reliability of the production and cost data, we discussed these data with officials from the military services to gain an understanding of the processes and databases used to collect and record data and to understand existing data quality control procedures and known limitations of the data. When we found inconsistencies in the data, we followed up with service officials to attempt to reconcile these differences. We determined that these data were sufficiently reliable for determining the extent to which the military services are meeting ROTC production goals and unit level requirements as well as the cost per unit. To assess the extent to which the services have established performance measures and evaluations for determining the structure of ROTC programs, we reviewed relevant legislation, specifically sections 2101- 2111b of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, and department and service guidance for ROTC programs, to identify what, if any, guidelines for cost-effective program management are identified. In addition, we reviewed prior GAO reports on ROTC and officer accessions programs to determine what recommendations and actions have previously been taken in regard to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of ROTC programs. We also obtained and analyzed information from each of the services to determine the frequency with which the services evaluated unit productivity to identify units for potential consolidation or closure. Further, we identified the measures used by each service to conduct these evaluations and compared them with key attributes of effective performance measures that our prior work has shown are needed to successfully evaluate program performance. We also interviewed knowledgeable officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the military services who are responsible for officer accessions and service-specific ROTC programs. We discussed with these officials the extent to which the services were meeting ROTC requirements for producing newly commissioned officers, ROTC guidance and policies, roles and responsibilities, program performance and costs, procedures for the establishment and disestablishment of ROTC units, assessments of ROTC unit productivity, and program oversight. To assess the extent to which the military services’ ROTC programs are subject to oversight and have effective processes for communicating with key stakeholders, we reviewed and analyzed relevant OSD and military service guidance to identify guidelines and responsibilities for conducting oversight of ROTC programs and communicating with key stakeholders about ROTC program performance. We obtained and analyzed documentation on military service correspondence with schools about ROTC program performance and compared them with provisions in DOD Instruction 1215.08 pertaining to communication with schools. We also interviewed knowledgeable officials from OSD and the military services on the activities and mechanisms used to conduct oversight of, and to communicate with stakeholders on, ROTC programs. We visited or contacted the following organizations during our review: Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Personnel Policy, Directorate of Accession Policy, Arlington, Virginia Deputy Chief of Staff, Military Personnel Management Directorate, Officer Division, Arlington, Virginia Army Cadet Command, Fort Knox, Kentucky Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Manpower Personnel Education and Training, Arlington, Virginia Naval Service Training Command, Great Lakes, Illinois Department of the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower Personnel and Services, Air Staff, Jeanne M. Holm Center for Officer Accessions and Citizen Development, Montgomery, Alabama Marine Corps Recruiting Command, Quantico, Virginia We conducted this performance audit from February 2013 to November 2013 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. In fiscal year 2012, the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program produced over 9,000 active duty, guard, and reserve officers. Table 6 provides a listing of the number of officers produced in fiscal year 2012 by unit, school location, and service. This appendix contains enrollment information on the number of students in each of the military services’ Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) programs across all years of study by unit and by the schools within the unit. Table 7 presents the Army’s enrollment information as of November 2012, table 8 presents the Navy’s enrollment information as of November 2012, and table 9 presents the Air Force’s enrollment information as of December 2012. The enrollment information is alphabetized by state or U.S. territory and then by unit and then by school within the unit.enrollment data, we identified that the services’ ROTC programs had about 53,000 students enrolled across all years of study in 2012—the Army had over 33,000 students enrolled, the Navy had over 6,000 enrolled, and the Air Force had over 14,000 students enrolled. In addition to the contact named above, Margaret Best (Assistant Director), Emily Biskup, Rebekah J. Boone, Richard Burkard, Timothy Carr, Susan Ditto, Cynthia Grant, Kimberly Mayo, Michael S. Pose, Stephanie Santoso, and John Wren made major contributions to this report. Military Personnel: DMDC Data on Officers’ Commissioning Programs is Insufficiently Reliable and Needs to be Corrected. GAO-07-372R. Washington, D.C.: March 8, 2007. Military Personnel: Strategic Plan Needed to Address Army’s Emerging Officer Accession and Retention Challenges. GAO-07-224. Washington, D.C.: January 19, 2007. Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: Questions Related to Organizational Restructuring. GAO/NSIAD-96-56. Washington, D.C.: February 6, 1996. Officer Commissioning Programs: More Oversight and Coordination Needed. GAO/NSIAD-93-37. Washington, D.C.: November 6, 1992. Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: Less Need for Officers Provides Opportunity for Significant Savings. GAO/NSIAD-91-102. Washington, D.C.: May 6, 1991.

Summary: ROTC is the largest source of newly commissioned officers for DOD. GAO's analysis of DOD data identified more than 9,000 officers commissioned from ROTC in fiscal year 2012. ROTC is critical for producing officers from the nation's colleges and universities to meet the leadership and readiness needs of the armed forces. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 mandated GAO to review the services' ROTC programs. This report assesses the extent that ROTC programs (1) met goals and minimum annual requirements for producing officers over a 5-year period, (2) have established performance measures and conducted evaluations for managing ROTC programs, and (3) are subject to oversight and have effective processes for communicating with key stakeholders. GAO analyzed ROTC production data from fiscal years 2008 through 2012; reviewed relevant legislation and DOD and service policies and guidance for ROTC; and reviewed and discussed assessments of ROTC efficiency and effectiveness, and oversight of ROTC with officials from OSD and the services. From fiscal years 2008 through 2012, each military service met at least 91 percent of their overall Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) goals for producing the number of officers needed to meet service end strength authorizations, but each has reported challenges in commissioning officers for some certain occupational specialties, such as engineers and nurses. Further, GAO's analysis found that half of the Department of Defense's (DOD) ROTC units did not meet DOD's minimum average annual production requirement over the 5-year period reviewed. Further, cost per commissioned officer varies greatly depending on unit production. For example, excluding tuition costs, the average cost per officer produced across all units was about $68,000, compared to an average cost of about $95,000 per officer for units that produced fewer than 15 officers on average annually from fiscal years 2008 through 2012. DOD's instruction specifies factors to consider before closing ROTC units, but these factors do not constitute clearly defined performance measures that provide a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness and efficiency of ROTC programs, and service evaluations of ROTC programs are ad hoc. DOD's instruction specifies that in assessing units for closure, the services are to consider the quality of officers produced by a unit but it does not clearly define characteristics that comprise quality, which has led to the inconsistent application of the measure by the services. The services conducted 11 evaluations over the past decade to assess performance and identify units for consolidation or closure. However, the evaluations have largely occurred on an ad hoc basis because the services have not established a systematic process to routinely evaluate ROTC program performance. Key attributes of successful performance measures include clearly, defined measures. Moreover, results-oriented program management practices include routine program evaluations that determine how well a program is working. Without clearly defined performance measures and routinely conducted evaluations, it will be difficult for the services to accurately determine if ROTC programs are effectively and efficiently operating. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) conducts some oversight functions, such as setting policy for the ROTC program. However, although specified in guidance, OSD does not review the services' methodologies for closing ROTC units because OSD officials believe this is a service responsibility. Further, the services do not consistently communicate with key stakeholders, such as members of Congress and schools, about performance of ROTC programs, except when closure decisions are being considered. This may have contributed to the difficulty the services have experienced in gaining political support for such closures. GAO has noted that regular communication with stakeholders helps build trusting relationships to gain buy-in. Without clearly delineated responsibilities for oversight of ROTC programs and a formal strategy to communicate with key stakeholders on ROTC program performance, DOD will find it difficult to obtain the support that is needed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of ROTC programs. GAO is making six recommendations to DOD, to include establishing clearly defined performance measures and conducting routine program evaluations; reexamining oversight roles and responsibilities; and developing a strategy for communicating with Congress and other key stakeholders on program performance. DOD concurred with each of GAO's recommendations.