"The mission of the mission of the United States Merchant Marine Academy is to educate and graduate merchant marine officers and leaders of honor and integrity who serve the maritime industry AND ARMED FORCES....."
Captain Johnson will tell you that the average pre-recession (before 2006ish) was about 17%-20% go active duty, but you see a spike to around 30 percent in recent years. 2010 settled back down and about 22% went active duty. There appears to be a pretty good correlation between the economy (# of sailing jobs) and how many graduates go active duty. Everyone has been preaching doom and gloom about the maritime industry, it'll never be the same, Jones act this, you won't find a job. That kind of talk has been going on forever, if you want a sailing job out of KP, you'll find one, if you want to go AD then you can do that too!