A Cost Effectiveness Comparison of Resident and Non-Resident Intermediate Level School (ILS)

Improving Marine officers Professional Military Education (PME) is critically important for the continued excellence of the officer corps. The challenge for the Marine Corps is to find the conect balance between providing an applicable education for current and future leaders while meeting operational requirements in a wartime environment. Educating our leaders is vitally important for the continued advancement of excellence in the Marine Corps, so meeting this challenge should be a priority. This paper will compare the costs and perceived effectiveness of both Resident and Non-Resident Command and Staff College educations. It will further compare the cost effectiveness of both programs and discuss alternate systems for providing the required education. With respect to costs, time is the cost directly examined. Not the cost in time to the individual Marine, but the time that the Marine Corps is paying to ensure that a Marine receives his/her education. Because this is a time cost to the Marine Corps, it can be associated with a dollar cost to the Marine Corps for that time. There is no cost in time for the Non-Resident Command and Staff education. Therefore dollar costs are used for the comparison. The effectiveness of an educational experience will vary greatly with the individual students. Therefore the perception of effectiveness as perceived by past studies and surveys, as well as promotion rates for graduates were used for the comparison.