When it comes to hitting the mark on military recruitment, the Marine Corps are meeting their goals. But the Army, Navy, and Air Force continues to fall short of what they needed.
In 2023, the Navy missed its recruitment goal by nearly 6,000. Now, the U.S. Navy says it will lower the bar when it comes to enlisting men and women to serve in uniform.
The Navy will start to accept applicants who have dropped out of school. They will also accept applicants who haven’t earned a high school diploma or acquired a GED.
Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman, the Navy’s chief of personnel, says they get thousands of people into the recruiting stations every year who want to join the Navy but are turned away due to their lack of educational credentials.
Proponents of this move claim the Navy isn’t hitting rock bottom because there will still be other standards for joining. For example, recruits who don’t have the education paperwork still must score 50 or above out of 99 on the qualification test.
Vice Adm. Cheeseman said the Navy turned away over 2,400 potential recruits last year because they lacked an education credential, roughly 500 of whom could have scored high enough to get in under the new rules.
This isn’t the first time the Navy has lowered its enlisting protocol.
Over the last two years, has been allowing a higher percentage of recruits who scored low on the Armed Services Qualification Test.
The Navy failed to meet its goal of enlisting 37,700 new recruits last year, bringing in just 31,834. This year, its looking to take in 40,600 recruits which would out the military branch at 337,800.
Enlistment numbers have steadily dropped for the past 40 years. More than 148,318 people enlisted in the US armed forces in 2020, a 59% decline from 1980.
The year, the US will see its smallest active-duty force since 1940.
The Department of Defense (DOD) says military services missed recruiting goals by 41,000 during the 2023 fiscal year.
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