A military school or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps. It normally provides education in a military environment. In United States, four types of military schools exist - Federal Service Academies (5 schools), Senior Military Colleges (6 schools), State-supported Maritime Colleges and Universities (6 schools), and Military Junior Colleges (4 schools).
Of the schools, only 1 school is private and the other 14 Military Colleges are public. For 15 Military Colleges,
- The average tuition & fees of Military Colleges is $10,267 for state residents and $24,945 for out-of-state students.
- The average tuition & fees of Military Colleges is $13,554 for state residents and $21,765 for out-of-state students.
- The average acceptance rate is 71.42% and the average SAT score is 1,196.
- The average number of students is 10,346 at Military Colleges.
- The average graduation rate is 60.87%.
Comparison between Military Colleges
The following table compares 15 Military Colleges with tuition and important admission statistics. You can sort the table to find top-ranked schools in the indicator (column) by clicking/touching a column that you want to sort.
For examples, the following colleges are ranked top in important indicators.
- Virginia Military Institute has the most expensive among Military Colleges, with tuition & fees of $51,186.
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has the most expensive graduate tuition & fees of $34,085 among Military Colleges.
- United States Merchant Marine Academy has the lowest acceptance rate of 32.47% and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has highest SAT score of 1,330
- Texas A & M University-College Station is the largest with 74,014 students among Military Colleges.
Federal Service Academies
The United States service academies, also known as the United States military academies, are federal academies for the undergraduate education and training of commissioned officers for the United States Armed Forces. Five service academies exist in United States as follows.
Senior Military Colleges
A senior military college (SMC) is one of six colleges that offer military Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) programs, though many other schools offer military Reserve Officers' Training Corps under other sections of the law. Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is the all-military state-sponsored school that enrolls only military cadets and awards BS degrees exclusively. The other five schools maintain both a corps of cadets and a civilian student body.
State-supported maritime colleges and universities
Students at these academies are organized as cadets, and graduate with appropriate licenses from the U.S. Coast Guard and/or U.S. Merchant Marine. While no longer immediately offered a commission as an Officer within a service have the opportunity to participate in commissioning programs. Great Lake Maritime Academy is a division of Northwestern Michigan College and Texas A&M Maritime Academy is a part of the Texas A&M University System.
Military Junior Colleges
A military junior college (MJC) is a military-style junior college in the United States and one of the three major categories of the Army ROTC schools that allows cadets to become commissioned officers in the U.S. Army reserve components in two years, instead of the usual four, through the Early Commissioning Program (ECP). They also offer Service Academy preparatory programs that allows qualified students to earn an appointment to the U.S. Service Academies upon their successful completion of this demanding one-year program at MJC.