Questions about College and Navy?

The AA/S should get you in as E-3... at least you'll be that when you graduate from Boot Camp. That'll give you six months to a year lead on the guys without the education.

Those who suggest you complete a degree on active duty are... misinformed. It takes at least four years to to get a Bachelors degree... going full time. That's conservatively four hours of class a day and eight hours of study. Considering that the "work day" at sea is from ten to twelve hours, that doesn't leave you much time for eating and sleeping.

There may be those who claim to have done it. I was able to get a BA in Math in three years. I even found the time to letter in swimming two of those years. So I don't think I'm quite the bottom of the barrel as a student. And I know I couldn't have gotten a degree while enlisted on active duty... and I was in 25 years.

I enlisted at age 20. When it came time to reenlist for my E-6, somebody dusted off my degree and recommended me for OCS. It wasn't program. It wasn't planned. The Navy just happened have a new program still in its formative stages and wanted young officers with my training and experience involved. I lucked out. That serendipitous confluence or circumstance doesn't occur often.

That said, there are programs... Seaman to Admiral and, I believe a baccalaureate-completion program... for which you can apply once you're in, but I would guess they're extremely difficult to get.

AFTERTHOUGHT:

As far as the benefits of transferring your credits, I believe you'll find that once you get your AS, a lot of your general education courses are out of the way. A lot of those are electives. When you move to a 4-year school you'll be stuck with two years of upper division classes... with no electives to break up the study load. Were you considering a soft major like psychology, sociology, art, education, history, or business, that might be less of a problem. But math and hard science... or even some engineering majors could make it tough.

Yes, you would come in the Navy as an E-3 with an Associates Degree. It's something like 30 credits to come in as an E-2, and 60 credits for an E-3.

You can also attend college classes while in the Navy and possibly finish your Bachelors before you got out, so you could theoretically use your G.I. Bill benefits for a higher level degree (Masters, PhD, etc.).

A recruiter as always would be your best source of information.

Edit - I gave gugliamo00 a thumbs down because he is misinformed. If you come into the Navy ALREADY with a 2 year degree it will not take an additional 4 years to finish a Bachelor's degree, if you attend classes "full time". Even if you attend classes "part time" it should take you no longer than 4 years to complete the degree. This is because you would theoretically already have a 2 year degree, so many of your pre-requisites for a Bachelor's will already be completed.

you cannot expect to get a 4 year degree while serving full time. it takes on average about twice as long.. so in a 4 year enlistment you can knock out 2 years of a degree or an associates. that's what the GI Bill is for after wards.. you use that to pay for college.