A new study from the Brookings Institution reviews scores from the General Classification Test (GCT) taken by new Marine officers in Quantico at the outset of their training. The GCT is effectively an IQ test, and is administered in a consistent manner year after year, which makes historical comparisons of the scores interesting. And not, it turns out, in a good way. Here's what the authors of the study discovered—in one chart, as we say these days:
Oh dear. That is a steady, straight 10-point decline, which the authors find dates to the elimination of the draft. The details only bear out the concerning nature of the trend:
For example, the GCT score in 1980 that demarcated the lower one-third of new officers that year demarcated the lower two-thirds of the new officers in 2014. While 85 percent of those taking the test in 1980 exceeded 120, the cut-off score for Marine officers in World War 2, only 59 percent exceeded that score in 2014. At the upper end of the distribution, 4.9% of those taking the test scored above 150 in 1980 compared to 0.7% in 2014. This negative trend could contribute to adverse consequences for military effectiveness and national security.
So what's going on? The explanation is not as simple as Draft = Smart Officers, while All Volunteer Force = Less Smart Officers. If that were the case, one would expect a cliff-like drop-off at the end of the draft, and not this consistent downward drift. Moreover, this drop appears to apply only to Marine officers. Enlisted Marines, comparable data shows, seem to have been getting somewhat smarter on average over the same period. (Insert "dumb lieutenant" jokes here.)
The researchers suggest, plausibly, that what we are witnessing here is not so much a Marine Corps trend as a side-effect of a broader American phenomenon: the democratization of college. The distinguishing entry requirement for officers, as opposed to enlisted servicemen, has always been a bachelor's degree. In an era where admission to college was more tightly restricted, this requirement may have ensured incoming classes of officers with high GCT scores. Now that access to American colleges has been expanded, Marine officer recruiters are drawing from a pool of potential lieutenants who are, on average, lower scorers on tests like the GCT.
The study is receiving a fair amount of attention, with write-ups in the Hill and Bloomberg View. The Bloomberg piece, by former Obama appointee Peter Orzag, makes an additional concerning observation--after one gets past its Google-optimized, entirely irrelevant Donald Trump lede. (Come on, guys.) Not only are intelligence test scores down for incoming Marine officers, but there is also data that suggests a brain drain, with the most academically qualified officers leaving earlier than their peers.
It would be very interesting to see if comparable data from the other services matches the trend for Marine lieutenants. If the proposed explanation in the Brookings study is correct, intelligence scores should be dropping for military officers across the Department of Defense. This is the sort of problem that does not suggest any easy solutions, but one hopes it is on the minds of those devising plans for much-needed personnel reform in the military.