		Executive Summary This executive summary outlines the chapters found in the Report on Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Study for Senate and House Armed Services Committees. This report was written to meet the requirements of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2001, which tasked the Air Force with a study of AFIT. The objective of the report is to highlight AFIT’s roles and missions, strategic priorities, plans to increase production, recommended organizational structure, student selection process, opportunities for graduates, funding issues, opportunities for research, and future challenges. The report contains 11 chapters with each chapter addressing a specific issue or providing a recommendation as requested in the NDAA of 2001. The chapters are titled according to the issue addressed. Chapter 1 examines AFIT’s roles and missions through 2010, focusing primarily on meeting the United States Air Force (USAF) and Department of Defense (DoD) critical scientific and education requirements. The overall mission of AFIT is to provide responsive, defense-focused graduate and professional continuing education; mission-focused research and worldwide problem solving for the USAF and DoD; and technical consultation to improve USAF and joint operations capability. AFIT’s mission includes ensuring that the AF is able to maintain its scientific and technological dominance. AFIT has derived its direction from a wide variety of AF and joint publications in order to develop educational and research programs. This has allowed AFIT the flexibility to adapt scientific and technical research and tailor its education programs in response to a rapidly changing world. In the future, AFIT will work to establish a relationship with the Naval Postgraduate School to capitalize on the strengths of both programs to jointly improve graduate education opportunities for both Services. Chapter 2 delineates the strategic priorities of AFIT. AFIT’s strategic priorities reflect its mission: to provide responsive, defense-focused graduate and professional continuing education to meet the needs of the USAF, DoD and the Nation; conduct mission-focused research and worldwide problem solving for the USAF and DoD; and provide technical consultation to improve AF and joint operational capability. Chapter 3 identifies USAF initiatives to increase enrollment in the graduate degree programs at AFIT and summarizes the difficulties AFIT has encountered in filling scientific and engineering student requirements. Initiatives include: utilizing direct accessions from the officer commissioning sources to fill seats; allowing military personnel and federal civilians in the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base area to enroll; and identifying and recruiting international officers to fill remaining available seats. . These actions have raised the core engineering and science student fill-rate to over 80 percent, up from below 50 percent. It has also resulted in the first AFIT resident enrollment increase since 1995 when the demand for scientists and engineers was not as high. The failure to meet a 100-percent fill-rate appears to be one consequence of current personnel shortages in the science and engineering career fields throughout the USAF. Current manning in scientific fields is 80 percent and 68 percent within the developmental engineering career field. Meeting a 100 percent student fill-rate in the engineering and science field of study would negatively impact present AF missions including operations tempo. Efforts to publicize opportunities to attend AFIT to encourage additional volunteers have been marginally successful. In addition, some personnel appear to be reluctant to commit to additional active duty service in a full-employment economy with better salaries outside the Air Force. Chapter 4 addresses the recommended grade of the AFIT Commandant. The methodology used is the Position Description (PD). The rank of the AFIT Commandant is therefore based upon the level and scope of responsibilities, the experience and skills required to do the job, and the level of official contacts with whom the commandant interacts. Using this methodology, the grade of the AFIT Commandant grades out at the level of brigadier general. The PD supports this by outlining the required specific duties and skills of the commandant. The current incumbent is a colonel and that has been the grade of the AFIT Commandant since 1991. Chapter 5 depicts AFIT’s current chain of command, which consists of four levels. Presently, AFIT reports to the Air University (AU) Commander who subsequently reports to Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The AETC Commander reports directly to Headquarters Air Force. The study supports the current command arrangement. Chapter 6 focuses on AFIT’s civilian faculty employment, civilian faculty pay and associated problems. The chapter discusses AFIT’s quest to remain competitive with other public and federal institutions in terms of faculty pay. During the threatened closure actions in the mid-1990s, AFIT lost 20 of the graduate school’s 51 civilian faculty members to retirement or other civilian job opportunities. Ten of these vacancies remain unfilled. In filling its vacancies, AFIT is statutorily restricted to hiring only US citizens. This limits their pool of eligible applicants and affects AFIT’s ability to hire qualified faculty. It is estimated that 45 to 60 percent of doctorates earned in engineering and the physical sciences in the past decade were awarded to non-US citizens. AFIT must try to hire from a pool of less than 50 percent of those earning doctorates. Another problem that AFIT continues to confront is the perception that the school may close in the future despite assurances from both senior Air Force leadership and Congress that AFIT’s future is secure. Chapter 7 explains the process for identifying USAF requirements for personnel with advanced academic degrees and the identification and selection of candidates for annual enrollment at AFIT. USAF career functional managers identify requirements for specific duty positions, which require an Advanced Academic Degree (AAD). AAD positions are the basis of the USAF-funded graduate education program. An AAD-validated position indicates the incumbent cannot optimally perform the job without the specific advanced degree. The basis for USAF AAD-funded quota requirements is projected vacancies due to personnel rotations or new degree requirements. If the USAF cannot fill the mission critical positions with the current officer inventory, then a limited number of officers are selected to receive graduate education through in-resident attendance at AFIT or a civilian institution. Current USAF policy requires the student attend AFIT if the field of study is available in residence. Graduates of the funded graduate education program normally serve in a coded AAD position immediately following graduation to ensure optimal payback to the Air Force. However, by regulation they must serve in an AAD position no later than the second tour following completion of the funded education. Due to funding constraints, the requirements for graduate education always exceed the number of available slots. The Air Force Education Requirements Board (AFERB) Working Group, a panel of career field functional experts, prioritizes the USAF graduate education requirements to determine which slots are funded with the limited resources. The AFERB Executive Committee reviews the working group’s findings and validates or modifies the results as necessary. The AFERB normally meets each October one and a half years prior to execution year for graduate education requirements, allowing time for candidate selection and preparation for the following summer move cycle. The Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC) selects the most qualified candidates available for the graduate degree training. Time-on-station requirements should be met to ensure personnel are not moved too often and to ensure the Air Force gets adequate payback for the previous move. Additionally, USAF mission requirements take priority further reducing the pool of eligible candidates. Also, some members might be reluctant to accept the active duty service commitment associated with the training in light of the competitive civilian job market. In summary, the USAF has a formal system in place to ensure limited graduate education resources are used to the maximum benefit of the USAF, DoD and the Nation. The AF selection process in determining AAD positions and filling AADs prevents repetition of effort in meeting AF needs. Chapter 8 discusses the post graduation opportunities (within the USAF) for AFIT graduates. These opportunities are in areas related to the graduate’s degree and involve jobs requiring an advanced degree in which the officer is a specialist. Sanctioned by the CSAF and SECAF, the S&E Summit is working to define better career opportunities for the science and engineering career fields to enhance recruitment and retention of scientists and engineers. The S&E Summit is examining the officer scientist and engineer career path where these officers could remain on a technical career path and be competitive for promotion to higher grades. Chapter 9 illustrates the policies and practices of admitting Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard officers, Department of the Army, Navy, and Transportation employees, military personnel from foreign countries, enlisted members and other persons eligible for admission to AFIT. AFIT follows the same policies and practices for applicants from other sources as it does for USAF officers. However, AFIT only enrolls non-USAF students on a space-available basis, since AFIT’s priority is to educate AF quota students. These exceptions are beyond AFIT’s control and while they do not affect admission criteria, they do affect the space available for these students. Students from non-USAF sources such as sister services and foreign military personnel have been used to fill vacant seats at AFIT and ensure the institute is operating efficiently. Students from outside sources currently make up almost a third of AFIT’s total student in-resident population. In the past, this has not been a problem since the USAF was unable to fill the quotas; however, if the USAF reaches a point where it can fill all the student slots, additional funding will be required to accommodate non-AF students. AFIT prefers to admit a number of sister service and foreign military officers to promote jointness, develop better relationships with international partners, and ensure continued interest in the programs. This chapter discusses a complication encountered when admitting civilians. Funds paid by civilians taking AFIT courses are deposited directly in the US Treasury and AFIT receives no direct reimbursement. Dayton Area Graduate Studies Institute (DAGSI) students who participate in a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) are an exception. DAGSI is a consortium of universities in the Dayton, OH area that allow the transfer of credits between the participating universities. This program allows payment to DAGSI, which deducts an administration fee and forwards the balance of the money to the providing institute. The chapter concludes by noting there is no reason why academically qualified enlisted personnel could not attend AFIT as full-time students. Chapter 10 addresses the near- and long-term funding of AFIT. AFIT’s funding has remained constant over recent years while overall requirements and costs continue to increase. Over the last 5 years, requirements have exceeded funding from $4M to $8M annually. This trend in funding is typical of the budget shortfalls each service has experienced. The long-term funding shortfalls from FY 03-09 are estimated to be between $11M and $20M. Chapter 11 examines opportunities for joint research and collaborative endeavors with other military and civilian scientific and technical institutions in order to produce qualified personnel to meet DoD scientific and technical requirements. In the past, AFIT has successfully identified and benefited from joint research efforts with other USAF agencies. From FYs 97-00, the AF Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the AF Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) provided over 70 percent of the funding for joint research and collaborative endeavors with AFIT, an amount ranging from $3.1M to $4.5M. Other USAF agencies contributed over $750,000 annually during this time. AFIT has supported other DoD units, but not to the same extent as the joint research provided to USAF units. Other DoD-sponsored research has averaged almost $250,000 each year. Other federal agencies outside of DoD, such as the Department of Energy and the National Security Agency have provided over $300,000 in research funds. Until recently, opportunities for joint research outside of the federal government have been limited. The advent of DAGSI and the associated CRDA has allowed joint research outside of the government. Civilian institute-sponsored research has climbed from less than $100,000 each year in FYs 97-99 to $255,291 last year and is expected to exceed $1M in FY 01. Building on the success with DAGSI, AFIT is now working to develop similar arrangements with educational institutions located throughout the country. One remaining barrier to collaborative efforts is the fact that AFIT is not statutorily authorized to receive grants and must negotiate other funding transfer mechanisms with sponsors. This statutory restriction was eliminated for the military academies through the Strom Thurmond National Defense Act of FY 99 and the removal of this restriction would benefit AFIT if similar legislation were enacted.

Executive Summary

This executive summary outlines the chapters found in the Report on Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Study for Senate and House Armed Services Committees. This report was written to meet the requirements of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2001, which tasked the Air Force with a study of AFIT. The objective of the report is to highlight AFIT’s roles and missions, strategic priorities, plans to increase production, recommended organizational structure, student selection process, opportunities for graduates, funding issues, opportunities for research, and future challenges. The report contains 11 chapters with each chapter addressing a specific issue or providing a recommendation as requested in the NDAA of 2001. The chapters are titled according to the issue addressed.

Chapter 1 examines AFIT’s roles and missions through 2010, focusing primarily on meeting the United States Air Force (USAF) and Department of Defense (DoD) critical scientific and education requirements. The overall mission of AFIT is to provide responsive, defense-focused graduate and professional continuing education; mission-focused research and worldwide problem solving for the USAF and DoD; and technical consultation to improve USAF and joint operations capability. AFIT’s mission includes ensuring that the AF is able to maintain its scientific and technological dominance. AFIT has derived its direction from a wide variety of AF and joint publications in order to develop educational and research programs. This has allowed AFIT the flexibility to adapt scientific and technical research and tailor its education programs in response to a rapidly changing world. In the future, AFIT will work to establish a relationship with the Naval Postgraduate School to capitalize on the strengths of both programs to jointly improve graduate education opportunities for both Services.

Chapter 2 delineates the strategic priorities of AFIT. AFIT’s strategic priorities reflect its mission: to provide responsive, defense-focused graduate and professional continuing education to meet the needs of the USAF, DoD and the Nation; conduct mission-focused research and worldwide problem solving for the USAF and DoD; and provide technical consultation to improve AF and joint operational capability.

Chapter 3 identifies USAF initiatives to increase enrollment in the graduate degree programs at AFIT and summarizes the difficulties AFIT has encountered in filling scientific and engineering student requirements. Initiatives include: utilizing direct accessions from the officer commissioning sources to fill seats; allowing military personnel and federal civilians in the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base area to enroll; and identifying and recruiting international officers to fill remaining available seats. . These actions have raised the core engineering and science student fill-rate to over 80 percent, up from below 50 percent. It has also resulted in the first AFIT resident enrollment increase since 1995 when the demand for scientists and engineers was not as high. The failure to meet a 100-percent fill-rate appears to be one consequence of current personnel shortages in the science and engineering career fields throughout the USAF. Current manning in scientific fields is 80 percent and 68 percent within the developmental engineering career field. Meeting a 100 percent student fill-rate in the engineering and science field of study would negatively impact present AF missions including operations tempo. Efforts to publicize opportunities to attend AFIT to encourage additional volunteers have been marginally successful. In addition, some personnel appear to be reluctant to commit to additional active duty service in a full-employment economy with better salaries outside the Air Force.

Chapter 4 addresses the recommended grade of the AFIT Commandant. The methodology used is the Position Description (PD). The rank of the AFIT Commandant is therefore based upon the level and scope of responsibilities, the experience and skills required to do the job, and the level of official contacts with whom the commandant interacts. Using this methodology, the grade of the AFIT Commandant grades out at the level of brigadier general. The PD supports this by outlining the required specific duties and skills of the commandant. The current incumbent is a colonel and that has been the grade of the AFIT Commandant since 1991.

Chapter 5 depicts AFIT’s current chain of command, which consists of four levels. Presently, AFIT reports to the Air University (AU) Commander who subsequently reports to Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The AETC Commander reports directly to Headquarters Air Force. The study supports the current command arrangement.

Chapter 6 focuses on AFIT’s civilian faculty employment, civilian faculty pay and associated problems. The chapter discusses AFIT’s quest to remain competitive with other public and federal institutions in terms of faculty pay. During the threatened closure actions in the mid-1990s, AFIT lost 20 of the graduate school’s 51 civilian faculty members to retirement or other civilian job opportunities. Ten of these vacancies remain unfilled. In filling its vacancies, AFIT is statutorily restricted to hiring only US citizens. This limits their pool of eligible applicants and affects AFIT’s ability to hire qualified faculty. It is estimated that 45 to 60 percent of doctorates earned in engineering and the physical sciences in the past decade were awarded to non-US citizens. AFIT must try to hire from a pool of less than 50 percent of those earning doctorates. Another problem that AFIT continues to confront is the perception that the school may close in the future despite assurances from both senior Air Force leadership and Congress that AFIT’s future is secure.

Chapter 7 explains the process for identifying USAF requirements for personnel with advanced academic degrees and the identification and selection of candidates for annual enrollment at AFIT. USAF career functional managers identify requirements for specific duty positions, which require an Advanced Academic Degree (AAD). AAD positions are the basis of the USAF-funded graduate education program. An AAD-validated position indicates the incumbent cannot optimally perform the job without the specific advanced degree. The basis for USAF AAD-funded quota requirements is projected vacancies due to personnel rotations or new degree requirements. If the USAF cannot fill the mission critical positions with the current officer inventory, then a limited number of officers are selected to receive graduate education through in-resident attendance at AFIT or a civilian institution. Current USAF policy requires the student attend AFIT if the field of study is available in residence. Graduates of the funded graduate education program normally serve in a coded AAD position immediately following graduation to ensure optimal payback to the Air Force. However, by regulation they must serve in an AAD position no later than the second tour following completion of the funded education. Due to funding constraints, the requirements for graduate education always exceed the number of available slots. The Air Force Education Requirements Board (AFERB) Working Group, a panel of career field functional experts, prioritizes the USAF graduate education requirements to determine which slots are funded with the limited resources. The AFERB Executive Committee reviews the working group’s findings and validates or modifies the results as necessary. The AFERB normally meets each October one and a half years prior to execution year for graduate education requirements, allowing time for candidate selection and preparation for the following summer move cycle. The Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC) selects the most qualified candidates available for the graduate degree training. Time-on-station requirements should be met to ensure personnel are not moved too often and to ensure the Air Force gets adequate payback for the previous move. Additionally, USAF mission requirements take priority further reducing the pool of eligible candidates. Also, some members might be reluctant to accept the active duty service commitment associated with the training in light of the competitive civilian job market. In summary, the USAF has a formal system in place to ensure limited graduate education resources are used to the maximum benefit of the USAF, DoD and the Nation. The AF selection process in determining AAD positions and filling AADs prevents repetition of effort in meeting AF needs.

Chapter 8 discusses the post graduation opportunities (within the USAF) for AFIT graduates. These opportunities are in areas related to the graduate’s degree and involve jobs requiring an advanced degree in which the officer is a specialist. Sanctioned by the CSAF and SECAF, the S&E Summit is working to define better career opportunities for the science and engineering career fields to enhance recruitment and retention of scientists and engineers. The S&E Summit is examining the officer scientist and engineer career path where these officers could remain on a technical career path and be competitive for promotion to higher grades.

Chapter 9 illustrates the policies and practices of admitting Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard officers, Department of the Army, Navy, and Transportation employees, military personnel from foreign countries, enlisted members and other persons eligible for admission to AFIT. AFIT follows the same policies and practices for applicants from other sources as it does for USAF officers. However, AFIT only enrolls non-USAF students on a space-available basis, since AFIT’s priority is to educate AF quota students. These exceptions are beyond AFIT’s control and while they do not affect admission criteria, they do affect the space available for these students. Students from non-USAF sources such as sister services and foreign military personnel have been used to fill vacant seats at AFIT and ensure the institute is operating efficiently. Students from outside sources currently make up almost a third of AFIT’s total student in-resident population. In the past, this has not been a problem since the USAF was unable to fill the quotas; however, if the USAF reaches a point where it can fill all the student slots, additional funding will be required to accommodate non-AF students. AFIT prefers to admit a number of sister service and foreign military officers to promote jointness, develop better relationships with international partners, and ensure continued interest in the programs. This chapter discusses a complication encountered when admitting civilians. Funds paid by civilians taking AFIT courses are deposited directly in the US Treasury and AFIT receives no direct reimbursement. Dayton Area Graduate Studies Institute (DAGSI) students who participate in a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) are an exception. DAGSI is a consortium of universities in the Dayton, OH area that allow the transfer of credits between the participating universities. This program allows payment to DAGSI, which deducts an administration fee and forwards the balance of the money to the providing institute. The chapter concludes by noting there is no reason why academically qualified enlisted personnel could not attend AFIT as full-time students.

Chapter 10 addresses the near- and long-term funding of AFIT. AFIT’s funding has remained constant over recent years while overall requirements and costs continue to increase. Over the last 5 years, requirements have exceeded funding from $4M to $8M annually. This trend in funding is typical of the budget shortfalls each service has experienced. The long-term funding shortfalls from FY 03-09 are estimated to be between $11M and $20M.

Chapter 11 examines opportunities for joint research and collaborative endeavors with other military and civilian scientific and technical institutions in order to produce qualified personnel to meet DoD scientific and technical requirements. In the past, AFIT has successfully identified and benefited from joint research efforts with other USAF agencies. From FYs 97-00, the AF Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the AF Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) provided over 70 percent of the funding for joint research and collaborative endeavors with AFIT, an amount ranging from $3.1M to $4.5M. Other USAF agencies contributed over $750,000 annually during this time. AFIT has supported other DoD units, but not to the same extent as the joint research provided to USAF units. Other DoD-sponsored research has averaged almost $250,000 each year. Other federal agencies outside of DoD, such as the Department of Energy and the National Security Agency have provided over $300,000 in research funds. Until recently, opportunities for joint research outside of the federal government have been limited. The advent of DAGSI and the associated CRDA has allowed joint research outside of the government. Civilian institute-sponsored research has climbed from less than $100,000 each year in FYs 97-99 to $255,291 last year and is expected to exceed $1M in FY 01. Building on the success with DAGSI, AFIT is now working to develop similar arrangements with educational institutions located throughout the country. One remaining barrier to collaborative efforts is the fact that AFIT is not statutorily authorized to receive grants and must negotiate other funding transfer mechanisms with sponsors. This statutory restriction was eliminated for the military academies through the Strom Thurmond National Defense Act of FY 99 and the removal of this restriction would benefit AFIT if similar legislation were enacted.