Our daughter is a junior at Bloomsberg in Pa and the NSA visited her school recruiting seniors in her major. It's about 23k per year all-in at this time. Our son is the HS senior, experiencing the same process as many of your young adults. Waiting results from USNA and from the NROTC board(s), and just finishing up his non-academy applications (Embry Riddle, Va. Tech, Texas A&M, Arizona State). With respect to looking at ROI, that's exactly what I did- back then the Washington Post Sunday edition had a huge employment section. At that time there more than 30 pages of engineering jobs; mostly computer science and electrical engineering. That's what got me to choose computer science. Norfolk State University was very affordable and I worked nights and weekends at 7-11. Graduate school was Va. Tech for which Raytheon paid. Defense contractors and most large companies help fund graduate school. ++ Good luck to your candidates and Gooooo Navy!!