The US Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colo., announced last week that its applications for the Class of 2014 had increased over the previous year by 17.2 percent overall and 36 percent for minorities. An average class comprises 1,300 students. The academy received nearly, 11,600 applications, about 1,700 more than for the 2013 class. Of those, there were 4,029 minority applications, an increase of 1,070 over the previous class. The USAFA release credited the success to the academy’s “focused efforts over the last several years to reach out to minorities and individuals in areas of the country that are underrepresented at the academy.”
A new Air Force plan for how many fighters it needs in the next decade marks a sharp upturn from what it thought it needed just seven years ago. But analysts worry that the aspirational plan now in Congress' hands doesn’t make a tight enough connection to national strategy.
