How to (Kinda, Sorta) Get a College Degree, Without Ever Enrolling in College

Step 1: Join the Navy

When he made the spur of the moment decision to enlist, Dad’s initial exam in the Navy recruiter’s office was promising enough (he says he only missed one logic question) that they took him in a heartbeat. Not that they were extremely picky back then. If you were reasonably fit and in possession of a high school degree, you were golden. Once in boot camp, they tested everyone for a specialty using the Navy Basic Test Battery; Tony passed everything but the sonar test.

One day about midway through boot camp, just before they started their service week—full of service assignments for the recruits like cleaning up the barracks, doing KP, or maintaining the base grounds—he was brought into the office for a chat. Turns out his scores qualified him for pilot training, but for one problem: he had no college degree.

Less of a problem than he might think, however, because the Navy was prepared to send him for College Equivalency testing. A four-part exam, administered over four days, which if passed would be the equivalent to a college degree.

Sure, Tony said, why not.  Meanwhile he was thinking: Naval Air Cadet…oh, yeah!

Naturally, when asked when Dad would like to take the test, he immediately thought of service week. Let’s see…test versus manual labor. The officer signed him up (he didn’t know it was service week!), and gave him instructions for obtaining a gate pass and a bus pass for the nearby exam provider.

Step 2: Take a Test

It wasn’t quite as easy as the officer made it sound. The Great Lakes Naval Station has over 50 miles of road on over 1000 acres of land. Tony had to go from the boot camp sector to another, rather far-away, part of the base, inhabited by regular Navy. He made it through the gate and onto the bus just fine, but was lost when he got off. Too many buildings with strange acronyms, and not nearly enough You-Are-Here maps.

A senior non-com saw recruit Tony looking around in utter confusion, and brought him into the mess hall for a quick meal and a chat. Dad was amazed at the treatment: eat off of real plates, not a divided metal tray? Choose your own food instead of taking whatever the kitchen rates slop onto your tray? Decent coffee? Hey! The Navy must not be all boot-camp-bad! Heck, it’s better than home-cooked!

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices, Tony said, “I’ll have what he’s having,” which was eggs, potatoes, sausage, toast, and bacon—to start. After this nourishing (and mind-numbing, I should think) meal, the non-com showed him where to report to for the test. The first “day” of testing only took two or three hours, so instead of heading back to boot camp, where he surely would’ve been assigned a “service”, he went bowling. Never one to pass up a good thing, my father.

The second day was much the same. Eat what passed for breakfast at boot camp at 6 am, then a flash of the gate pass, a short hop on the bus, and a second, much happier, breakfast. There followed three hours of testing, followed by a lunch and then a movie at the base cinema. On the third day he did some shopping, and on the fourth, made a virtuous stop at the base library (maybe. Apparently, day 4 is a *little fuzzy).

Great Lakes Naval Training Station

Step 3: Get the results posted to your Service Record

Three weeks later, he was called back into the office with the news that he had passed all the exams. This put a College GED on his Service Training record. I've seen it. It's really there. Of course, it also states he is blond and brown-eyed. 

All my life, I've heard him tell me that he has a college GED. Now I know that he truly does. If only it had carried across into civilian life! 

   

Step 4: Explore the options

The test results also qualified him for Naval Air Training.

“Wow!” he thought, “me…a PILOT!”

“Let me tell you how this works,” said the officer. “We ship you out at the end of boot camp, and you stay in a holding area while you wait for your training class to fill up—oh, three to six months. Once the squadron is full, you’ll start school. Pre-flight training will begin, and the first 18 months are critical.” If you made it through that, he went on, there would still be another 2-3 years before you were really up and running flying.  

Weeeeell, yes, but you’d be a PILOT!

Now came the kicker for Dad: If you don’t make it through those first 18 months, back you’ll go to your original squadron and assignments. And make it or wash out, the training time (up to 5 years!) wouldn’t count towards your original period of enlistment, or time-in-rate for advancement. Hmmm.

It was at this point that Tony started recalling all the reasons he wouldn’t make it through those 18 months, things that would not have shown up on an entrance exam or basic physical. His ears couldn’t handle the pressure changes. He was essentially night-blind, with zero depth perception. And five years was a long time for a 21 year-old to invest, especially this one, who enlisted to take control of his military duty, and never intended to make it a career.

He turned them down before they could wash him out. Any regrets lasted only long enough to graduate from boot camp, and get through electrical training. After visiting his family, Tony drove out to his new assignment at McGuire AFB as part of the Military Air Transport System; instead of flying the planes, he would make sure they were fit to be flown. There was simply too much to see and do and experience in the Navy to stay down for long. And besides, he had that college GED!