Nah, most go to the Citadel to get ahead in the state of SC. Don’t know any that became cops. There is a big network in the state for Citadel grads. Although there is no military commitment some go on to the US Marine Corp. Why? Well their Daddy and Mommy just paid for them to get abused for 4 years at the Citadel so why not get paid for being abused at Quantico for 10 weeks, get a commission and retire in 20 years?
Well if that’s the case then opening a school in SC isn’t going to make a lick of difference really. TMA offers in-state rate to L/O students again (like they used to when I went).
That’s a good deal! I was working out of there up til 2010 & my tickets to the NYC area usually ran twice that. I didn’t live as near as CHS but way closer than my friend so I guess he pays a lot more. His wife being an immigrant Latina, the same as mine, I suspect their boy comes home frequently & I know they go visit him a couple times a year.
But none of that is important. What get’s me is, so far on this thread I’m the only indifferent/semi-supportive to the idea of the citizens of South Carolina forking over their own tax money to start another state maritime academy. The more publicly for our profession the better imo. I know they’ll get some federal funding from the pie but the pie would likely get bigger. It’d be 50 years before the Feds bought them a training ship imo. I wonder if those who lean against the idea of another state maritime academy feel that way because they don’t want more competition for their alma maters?
Yeah bc eventually it becomes my tax money when they want federal funding, which makes a smaller pot for the already existing academies that are always in need of more funds.
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Let me start off by saying I don’t & never lived in South Carolina. And I really don’t want any of my kids to attend a maritime college so I really don’t care one way or another.
About my federal tax money. We’ll spend way more money killing farmers & shepherds in the Middle-East compared to what we spend on maritime academies. No politicians ever worried about my opinions on that & they don’t care about any of our opinions about possible federal tax dollars going a SC maritime academy either.
Here is another strange thing about this forum & maritime academies. CMA had such low enrollment & mismanagement they almost went out of business & we just shrugged our shoulders. Literally, I’ve read hundreds of comments from mariners on here, perhaps over a thousand saying they wished the USMMA would be shut down. Also a lot of talk about how the Great Lakes Maritime Academy is a tiny trade school just for Great Lakes traffic & Mass Maritime is halfway to the point of dropping it’s licensed program all together. Now everyone seems opposed to a state legislature starting a new maritime academy because they feel they need one. What’s going on with you folks?
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Sorry, but the Feds are boobs. They’re turning over 6 nice Watson class ship to MARAD who will man them with 10-11 people. Very likely go downhill quickly because of minimal manning, BASICALLY ZERO OVERTIME, few and far between FOS missions, and wages so low that it makes the jobs hard to fill…. All while they authorized (and finished half) all those ridiculous NMSVPSDSTCWSTD ships for the state schools. They could have built 2 or 3 less and given raises to ROS manning wage scale spread over 10 years……Shortsighted.
With the closure of Tongue Point, what we actually need is more unlicensed in the pipeline. Piney Point, a few small schools, and MSC are the only good options for guys trying to get in unlicensed. No ones COI has OS/Wipers on it so most companies won’t hire an “extra” to get seatime. I just got my COI changed so that 2 out of 6 AB’s could be OS’s if they had RFPNW. We are reducing the entry aperture to our detriment, as they comprise half the crew or more.
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I don’t really have an opinion on new academy. I guess if they want it, they should get it. In regards to training ship, years ago I was working on Empire State and each time we had cadets from other than SUNY schools.
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That doesn’t mean we should just reduce the funding for the other academies to fund one we don’t need.
I mean if you don’t call and tell them and make a stink about it, yeah I guess not.
Speak for yourself.
That’s a different argument, with deeper ramifications. Arguing against opening a new academy however is kinda on par with shutting down another one.
Idk who’s saying that but they’re clueless.
Yeah because we can’t fund ONE academy correctly. The FEDERAL academy doesn’t get the funding it needs. It all goes back to money, man.
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If, a BIG GIANT “if”, South Carolina gets a state maritime academy, I suspect ZERO other academies will get less federal funding. What they might get though is less applications & less prime cadets because students will have more choices on where they go to school. From reading this thread, what I take away is a bunch of ring knockers don’t want any other state schools knocking any other rings in the maritime field. So be it. Luckily it isn’t up to me nor the exclusive alumni of NY, TX, ME, MI or CA state schools who gets to decide where kids in South Carolina gets to study. Let the South Carolina State Legislature & their citizens decide… Federal tax dollars belongs to all of us, not just to the entitled alumni of Maine, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Michigan & California maritime academies.
Buddy, we can’t fund any of them correctly right now. If they open another one where’s that money gonna come from??
What?? Who’s giving you that impression?
I don’t think anyone is arguing that??
Correct, I don’t see what you’re arguing though? Seems like you’re arguing against… no one…?
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Read comment 11, you’re the one who made several rebuttals to me. I didn’t start arguing with you. I didn’t even mention nor replied to you. I was discussing with shootermcgavin about how out of states schools can be more expensive than in-state schools which is true in many cases. Then you jumped in, replying to me, sentence for sentence at comment 11 claiming I should be worried about my federal tax dollars?! Go back & read your own comments in a conversation you started with me. You’re obviously worried about your federal tax money or you wouldn’t have brought it up or replied. I’m not worried nor arguing at all, just stating my opinion the State Legislature & citizens of South Carolina should vote to do what they think is in their best interest. Why are you on my case about it?
I can’t speak for your experience, but beyond a little ribbing here and there in good fun, I can’t say I’ve seen any ‘ring knocking’ or entitled behavior to amount to anything worth remembering more than about 5 mins past coffee time in terms where somebody went to school. Maybe it helps at some pilot associations or something, but I dont know that for sure. I don’t care whether somebody went to an academy or Penis Point or whatever. It has no bearing on us getting the job done together and getting safely from A to B. Maybe some alumni stick closer together if they collectively are from a certain area, but ring knocking??? if that was ever a Maritime Academy thing, it must be a long ass time ago.
Whatever happens (I’d say less than 10% chance of actually ever happening, or at least that’s what MEBA DECKIE told me) To the prospective SCMA, what grounds does any state maritime school have to complain about Federal spending for somebody else? They would make about as much sense as KP making complaints on the same front. Did the state schools pay the Feds for the new training ships or even pay rent on them? Guessing the answer is no, and always will be.
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…you commented on an open forum about a topic… I replied to your comments.
I wonder if it’s better if Union or private companies are better off crewing them? Now I don’t know how the logistic of it would work. Aside from the one T-AKE and Oiler. Union’s I think is capable enough to crew the dozen Spearhead class they’re laying up. Seaward services run the USNS Guam which is very similar to the Spearhead class. I do believe the spearhead class have some type of certification that mates need but it shouldn’t be that hard to get…
From the trillions of $ that foreign manufacturers are paying to import their products into the USA of course!
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Anybody… please explain why is it the Federal Govt’s responsibility to fund a state maritime school? As it is, those schools could certainly never afford to build/buy the type of ships they now have (and probably even the ones they had in the past or are about to be replaced). I would IMAGINE they will be able to make even more money for themselves during training cruises with all the other people they’ll be able to put on board charging tuition for whatever other fields of study they push on to summer school at sea or whatever they call it.
Average cost per ship for the taxpayer is $320M , $1.6B total 5 ships. LUNACY. Wasteful.
I am legitimately getting confused as to where this rationale comes from…
If SC or any other state starts a new maritime academy it’s almost for certain Uncle Sam WON’T be funding any more training ships. It took decades, several Congresses & POTUS’s to get the last ones. That was a once in a few generations type deal imo. The existing state academies got more milk out of the tax payers teet with those ships than a new academy ever will.
Is the question who is crewing those NSMV contraptions during cruises/activations??? Some MMP LDOs for Empire State for sure. Same for Golden Bear. Don’t know about the other schools and I don’t know about the unlicensed. My guess would be SIU.
I don’t know if these are actual contracts, so not really sure how it works.