ROTC’s ranks surge with new recruits

He is also a master sergeant in the Army ROTC, an officer-in-the-making who has spent weekends firing an M-16, rappelling, and honing land-navigation skills while many classmates are launching a blitz on the college social scene.

“I have a mission,’’ said Higgins, a native of East Setauket, N.Y.

That mission - to serve the country and gain leadership experience - is shared by a sharply growing number of American undergraduates, who have swollen the Army’s ROTC ranks by 26 percent, to 30,721, in the last three years.

“I’ve wanted to join the Army ever since 9/11,’’ said Higgins, who was 13 at the time of the terrorist attacks.

The rise comes as the Army expands and tries to fill a deep officer shortage, bumping up its number of ROTC scholarships by 75 percent since the 2005-2006 school year. A free education has clearly been a draw in uncertain economic times, and a strong sense of patriotism appears to motivate many new cadets. But even career Army officers who lead them cannot pinpoint exactly why ROTC, divisive and controversial during the Vietnam War, has become increasingly attractive when one long, costly war is winding down and another is ramping up.

“I really don’t have an answer to that,’’ said Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Hall, who commands the Paul Revere Battalion of Army ROTC, which draws cadets from Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Wellesley, and five other area colleges. “It’s such a complicated, personal decision, I don’t think you can point to any one factor.’’

What Hall does know is that he is in a growth industry. Since the 2005-06 academic year, his battalion has expanded by 79 percent, to 86 cadets from 48. In the last year alone, the MIT-based battalion - the oldest Army ROTC unit in the country - grew by 14 students.

“For them, it’s about their calling to serve something bigger than themselves,’’ said Hall, who served two tours in Iraq.

The surge is also linked to a dramatic increase in the Army’s size, to 547,000 soldiers from 482,000 in 2006. That sudden growth brought an urgent need for many more officers, which likewise led to the boost in scholarship money.

Increases in ROTC enrollment are occurring across the nation at many of the 273 colleges and universities with ROTC programs. At Norwich University in Northfield, Vt., the oldest private military institution in the country, the number of freshmen with Army ROTC scholarships jumped more than threefold this year, to 87 from 27.

“We’ve always done well in the past, but this is kind of extraordinary,’’ said Norwich president Richard Schneider, a Vietnam veteran and retired rear admiral in the Coast Guard Reserve. “This isn’t driven by money. It’s driven by a deep commitment to the republic.’’

Norwich is unusual in that its ROTC scholarship students receive a completely free education. The scholarship, at Norwich and elsewhere, usually pays for tuition and fees. But at the Vermont university, which provided the model for the creation of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in 1916, a special college fund also covers room and board.

Schneider said he does not believe financial incentives are the overriding draw for ROTC, in which graduates are commissioned as second lieutenants and can find themselves overseas six months later.

The numbers for enlisted recruits, such as privates, “do track the economic recession better - people think about joining the Army to get a job,’’ Schneider said. “But I don’t think it’s true about officers.’’

The military’s other branches also have ROTC programs, but the Army program has shown the largest expansion by far.

All ROTC cadets make an eight-year commitment to the Army after graduation, which includes four years of active duty for scholarship students and three years for non-scholarship cadets. The remainder of the time can be spent in the National Guard, Reserves, or the Individual Ready Reserves, which is an inactive force that can be called up in an emergency.

Today, the active-duty Army is short about 3,000 majors and captains, said Colonel Paul Aswell, chief of the Army’s Officer Division. To fill those positions, the Army needs to recruit and commission second lieutenants - the rank of ROTC cadets when they graduate - as quickly as possible.

“Captains and majors are very difficult to grow’’ from their roots as second lieutenants, Aswell said. “It takes almost 10 years to grow a major and almost four years to grow a captain.’’

The Army Cadet Command, which oversees the ROTC program, has watched its goals for new second lieutenants soar from 3,900 in 2001 to 5,100 in 2010, according to Lieutenant Colonel Michael Indovina, spokesman for the command.

Not only has the Army expanded rapidly, but a profound organizational shift has further stoked the need for more midlevel officers. Today’s Army relies heavily on fast-moving, technology-laden, combat brigades - as opposed to the old model of combining several, interconnected brigades in large divisions.

Under the new alignment, a brigade of 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers might need seven or eight majors, as opposed to one or two under the old system, in which several brigades would be consolidated in a division of 15,000 to 20,000 men and women. For captains, Aswell said, a brigade now uses 15 to 20, instead of five or six.

With such needs, a big increase in scholarship money is seen as one more tool to attract students to ROTC. “We have to balance the risk of not producing those officers with the cost,’’ Aswell said. “There will come a day when we won’t pay that many scholarships, but in this period in our nation’s history, it’s important to accept that risk if we can afford it.’’

Last academic year, 51 percent of the nation’s ROTC students received federal scholarships.

In the Paul Revere Battalion, cadets do not receive course credit for ROTC work, which includes up to three hours of classes and three hours of physical training per week, plus two to four hours of practical training and field exercises every other weekend.

For them, the motivation lies elsewhere.

“There was no financial gain for me,’’ said cadet Staff Sergeant Alejandro Lopez, 19, an MIT junior from San Juan. “It was more of joining for a higher calling.’’

His words were echoed by four of his fellow cadets, who had gathered for an interview at the battalion office.

“There’s a mission out there, and I always felt an obligation to help complete it,’’ said cadet Sergeant Josh Guerra of Miami, 24, a senior who entered Harvard after an Army tour in Afghanistan.

Guerra, a chemistry and physics major, joined ROTC partly because he had seen the impact of an officer in war. Now, he faces the prospect of returning to Afghanistan as a leader of infantry.

Fellow Harvard students are respectful of his decision to join ROTC, Guerra said, which is plainly evident every Tuesday when cadets must wear their uniforms to class.

“At Harvard and MIT, there are many paths to virtue,’’ Guerra said. “Military service is just another expression of volunteerism and serving a cause.’’