Army Set to Overhaul Length of Noncommissioned Officer Academies to Cut Costs

Army planners are moving toward a sweeping overhaul of the service's professional military education pipeline for noncommissioned officers, part of an aggressive push to slash costs.

The overhaul is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks and primarily aimed at slashing the cost of sending soldiers to school -- particularly travel expenses like rental cars, meals and lodging, internal documents and correspondence between service planners reviewed by Military.com show.

The changes could significantly reduce the length of midlevel NCO courses. The Advanced Leader Course, or ALC, and Senior Leader Course, or SLC, would be compressed from eight to 16 weeks down to just three weeks, regardless of occupational specialty. Meanwhile, the Basic Leader Course, or BLC, could be extended from three to six weeks.

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The effort reflects a broader scramble inside the Army to scrounge up funds wherever possible as the service ramps up investment in artificial intelligence, drone warfare and deeper collaborations with Silicon Valley.

The service has also recently sought to save money by disbanding much of its ceremonial horse units, gutting Army Reserve aviation elements, and reshuffling Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs.

In addition to the other education changes under consideration, the Master Leader Course, or MLC, which is designed for senior NCOs, would increase modestly from two to three weeks. The Sergeants Major Academy will remain a 10-month program, though some minor curriculum changes are on the table.

The move to a longer BLC comes as the service was originally eyeing a more modest extension of just a few days to make room for land navigation.

BLC has seen frequent tweaks over the past two decades with length and branding. Service planners have long struggled to find the right balance of whether the school's purpose is to effectively rubber stamp a new NCO for roles of authority and rely on units to do much of the training or whether the school itself should be on the hook for a new leader's development.

Meanwhile, the proposed changes could have outsized implications for the Army Reserve and National Guard, where troops often struggle to attend schooling due to the demands of civilian careers or college commitments.

For active-duty troops, shorter midlevel NCO courses could ease the burden of units losing leadership for extended periods. Some of those schools have also historically struggled with enough space for students.

The overhaul comes as Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer has retooled the promotion system for enlisted leaders, easing formal requirements while streamlining development pipelines.

Under his tenure, the Army eliminated all required training to make sergeant, making BLC instead a prerequisite to pin on staff sergeant. However, those who complete BLC early in their careers are given a significant advantage for promotion. The Army last year also scrapped online training courses for NCOs, which were widely seen as burdensome across the ranks.

At the center of Weimer's agenda is a push to restore what he describes as core Army standards, an effort he's framed as the defining mission of his four-year tenure, now at its midpoint. Noncommissioned officers, he has repeatedly said, are key to enforcing that vision.

Yet Weimer has offered few specifics on what standards exactly have eroded in recent years or how a renewed focus on discipline will be measured. "You're going to see us focus on standards and discipline," he told Military.com in a 2023 interview. "There should be no ambiguity on what the standard is."

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