The effect of Marine Corps enlisted commissioning programs on officer retention

This thesis estimates multivariate models to analyze the determinants of retention to ten years of commissioned service and retention until retirement eligibility of Marine Corps officers by commissioning program. Using data from the Marine Corps Commissioned Officer Accession Career file (MCCOAC), logistic regression models are specified to predict Marine Corps Officer retention behavior. The models specify retention as a function of commissioning program, The Basic School (TB S) graduation rank, General Classification Test (GCT) score, ethnicity, marital status and Military Occupational Specialty (MO S). The findings reveal that those officers commissioned through the MECEP program were 55 percent more likely to stay in until their tenth year of service than officers commissioned via the United States Naval Academy. It was also found that there were no significant differences between commissioning programs in explaining retention to-retirement behavior. Based on the results of the analysis, it is recommended that increasing the number of MECEP candidates may reduce officer attrition and increase the Marine Corps' return on investment in its commissioning programs.