Why do service academies require a nomination from congressmen/senator?

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unknow

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Why do service academies (except coast guard academy) require the a nomination from a politician? Congress people or president or vice president?
I am curious why. And why does the coast guard academy not require that nomination? I know other countries' academies you just apply for it and do not need to contact a politician.
 
It is required by US Law. From my understanding it applies to the Department of Defense. I believe the purpose was to ensure some level of diversity across the nation. USCG was historically under the Department of Transportation and now Department of Homeland Security. The law didn't apply to these departments. The specific coding of the law is spread out across many sections of the Code of Federal Regulations. USMMA requires a nomination but that can be obtained from any member of congress and the law doesn't require them to appoint a Midshipman for every MOC. The other nomination sources are service related and managed by the academies and not actually granted by the President/VicePresident.
 
Good question and as far as I know there isn't a this_is_why.pdf out there. However, I have some thoughts:
  • Attending a SA is a tax payer funded obligation so it makes some sense to have a check in place to ensure the tax payers are paying for a quality applicant
    • Yes, the remainder of the application can speak to the applicant being exceptional but this serves as another verification.
  • I suspect that without the nomination requirement the SAs would see a lot more application volume, something they may not be equipped to handle. Nomination ties into the idea of 'how badly do you want this?'
  • The nomination process provides a community outreach component for politicians
  • As for the coast guard, my gut says that's a legacy carryover due to the slight differences in this funding, history, and flexible CoC depending on peace or wartime status
I'm curious if anyone has more insight. I did a little googling but came up empty handed. Different sections of 10 U.S.C. dictate the nominations but don't spell out why.
 
This is some good background reading:

The service academies themselves are waaaay down in the federal hierarchy of power. I suspect Congress wanted to be involved, since taxpayer dollars are involved, and they wanted their fair share of their constituents to go there, so they legislated themselves right into the process. I think the Coast Guard escaped, likely because of their size, mission and different chain of command. If you read the link, you’ll see how USMMA state distribution has been legislated even more specifically.
 
Nominations have been around a long, long time — starting with the first SA, West Point. Grant and Lee and Sherman (heard of them?) were nominated. So were Pershing and Ike and Patton and MacArthur long after them.

We can speculate as to the reasons. The more plausible ones include (1) the spreading of wealth for a publicly funded federal institution; (2) the opportunity for legislators to ensure representation of their district; (3) the chance to exercise patronage to supportive constituents; (4) the assurance that national defense was indeed a national endeavor.

Remember that in the early days — certainly when USMA was founded — our country was mainly a collection of states. Senators and Representatives tended to be very parochial, usually putting state and district interests well ahead of national interests. So it does make sense that in passing the laws that created SAs, they ensured that their local interests were protected.
 
At the very least the USCGA and USMMA are very small, like 275 incoming plebes each year. There are 538 congressfolk so they'd barely get an appointment every other year. You can do it, but it's not going to mean as much (or it's going to mean way too much) so there hasn't been a ton of pressure to bring USCGA in line with the others.
 
The USMA and USNA were founded at a time when states rights were viewed by citizens as more important than the federal government. No representative of a state would want a federal military disproportionately composed of citizens of one state or region over another. Hence, the nomination requirement.

CGA didn’t become an institution until 1876, when it had nine students, and the academy program was conducted entirely on a ship. The coast guard didn’t acquire a land campus for its program until 1900.
 
USNA_STEM_Prof said:
Good question and as far as I know there isn't a this_is_why.pdf out there. However, I have some thoughts:
  • Attending a SA is a tax payer funded obligation so it makes some sense to have a check in place to ensure the tax payers are paying for a quality applicant
    • Yes, the remainder of the application can speak to the applicant being exceptional but this serves as another verification.
  • I suspect that without the nomination requirement the SAs would see a lot more application volume, something they may not be equipped to handle. Nomination ties into the idea of 'how badly do you want this?'
  • The nomination process provides a community outreach component for politicians
  • As for the coast guard, my gut says that's a legacy carryover due to the slight differences in this funding, history, and flexible CoC depending on peace or wartime status
I'm curious if anyone has more insight. I did a little googling but came up empty handed. Different sections of 10 U.S.C. dictate the nominations but don't spell out why.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your reply. I also googled the topic and could not find anything. Adding that step of the politician makes the application harder from what I see. It was hard for me to apply to three colleges in the US. I am a foreigner.
 
unknow said:
Thank you for your reply. I also googled the topic and could not find anything. Adding that step of the politician makes the application harder from what I see. It was hard for me to apply to three colleges in the US. I am a foreigner.
Click to expand...
Do you know what nominations you qualify for?
 
OldRetSWO said:
Do you know what nominations you qualify for?
Click to expand...
I do not qualify for any nomination. I am a foreigner. It was just my curiosity why politicians were involved in the selection process of military officers.
 
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