Military Degrees: How High Is the Bar and Where’s the Beef?

Abstract

It is unfortunate in some ways that officers are advised to obtain a degree, rather than an education. Of course, it is easier to identify a degree than an educated mind. I know officers with a superb professional education – well read, articulate, critical and open-minded – who have somehow escaped ‘higher education’ entirely. I know others whose ticket-punching university degrees have left them just as resistant to new knowledge and as suspicious of ideas as they were before the parchment was inked. Education touches us all in different ways. If the Canadian Forces are going to produce degrees-as required from the Forces’ own university, we should think about the types of degrees, and articulate for Canadian Forces students and administrators exactly what they are being asked to do and why.

Keywords: Higher Education, Military, University

JEL Classification: N4, I20