The USCG uses a variety of officer commissioning programs.  These include programs for civilians and active USCG enlisted members and warrant officers to become commissioned officers.  In FY 1999, the USCG commissioned a total of 329 new officers, down from 390 in FY 1998.  The USCG commissioned officer corps stood at 5,504 at the end of FY 1999, also down from FY 1998 when the end-strength stood at 5,530.  In Table 8.6, the distribution of new USCG officers (accessions) and current officers (corps) by source of commission and level of education is presented with applicable overall DoD figures for comparison.

Source of Commission. The USCG relies heavily on the U. S. Coast Guard Academy for its officer accessions.  The USCG gets almost half of its new officers from its Academy as compared to 18 percent for DoD as a whole, as shown in Table 8.6.  This large difference can be at least partially explained by the fact that the USCG does not have an ROTC program.  The fact that an even greater proportion of the USCG officer corps were academy graduates is an indication that the retention rate for graduates is higher than for the other sources of officers.

Educational Attainment. Table 8.6 shows that USCG officer accessions and members of the officer corps were less likely than their overall DoD counterparts to possess a college degree.  The USCG has two commissioning programs that provide opportunities for a commission without a college degree.  An enlisted member of the USCG who has attained the grade of E-5 and has at least 30 college credits can apply to attend the USCG’s Officer Candidate School (OCS), thereby making a commission possible without college completion.  In a related program, a USCG member who achieves the rank of chief warrant officer may apply for OCS attendance or a commission via the “Warrant-to-Lieutenant” program. [1]   These programs are indicative of USCG’s emphasis on experience and education in its commissioning decisions.

Race/Ethnicity and Gender. The USCG percentage of Whites was slightly higher than the overall DoD rate for officer accessions (80 and 78 percent, respectively) and officers (88 and 84 percent, respectively), as shown in Table 8.7.  By gender, the USCG officer accessions were slightly more likely to be female than were DoD officer accessions (23 and 20 percent, respectively), but members of the USCG’s officer corps were slightly more likely to be male than were DoD officers (88 and 85 percent, respectively).