Servicemen who Take Correspondence Courses

Abstract

The United States Armed Forces Institute (USAFI) provides material for the largest adult education program in the world. Its offering of correspondence, self-teaching, and group-study courses, college ex tension courses with cooperating schools, and its testing and accredi tation services, extend to men and women in the Armed Services all over the globe. In the United States, USAFI headquarters is located at Madison, Wisonsin, and is operated as a field installation of the Office of Armed Forces Information and Education, Department of Defense. Overseas, five more USAFI organizations provide educational services to all major commands. Millions of service personnel have taken ad vantage of the wide variety of elementary, high school, technical, and college level courses to extend their education during their period of service with the Armed Forces. The two USAFI services which are the primary concern of this study account for the major part of USAFI's work. This is the offering of cor respondence and self-teaching courses, which differ in the following respects: Correspondence courses require written lessons to be submitted to USAFI, where they are graded by an instructor, and returned to the stu dent. The enrollee is sent the necessary texts, study guides, lesson sheets, and envelopes, and he submits his lessons at whatever rate he chooses. When all the lessons have been submitted, or earlier if he feels prepared, he may apply for an end-of-course test. If the student so requests, the results of the test may be forwarded by USAFI toa school or college where he wishes to obtain credit. He is automatically disenrolled after any six-month period of inactivity, or 12 months from the date of enrollment if he has not completed the course. Self-teaching courses do not require the submission of lessons. The enrollee is sent the instructional materials, and studies athis own pace. When he feels prepared, he may apply for an end-of-course test. A stu dent is automatically disenrolled from the course if it is not completed 12 months after the date of enrollment. Students in both correspondence and self-teaching courses pay initi ially a $2. 00 enrollment fee. After satisfactory completion of the first course, additional courses may be taken without charge.