With graduation coming up and college tuition rates rising, the past few months, some students have taken their future finances into their own hands by joining the military reserves, a pool of extra personnel that each military branch employs.

“It’s mostly for college,” senior Josh Abitz, who joined the National Guard Reserves, said. “It’s a really good career path as well, but for me, I’m just going to K-State. They’re going to help me go through school and do what I want to do with my future … It’s very good in understanding how the world works and how tough it actually is.”

To join the reserves, applicants first had to score high on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, test and pass a physical examination.

“It’s a very simple test,” Abitz said. “It’s just basics like ‘if John had $2 and Amy had $2 and they spent it on X, how much money would they have left?’ It’s very simple.”

For some, like senior Rheannan Weixelman, joining the reserves wasn’t the plan when they took the ASVAB.

“I took it just to see what careers I’d be really really good at,” Weixelman said, “but it turns out I get a letter from the National Guard saying with my score, I qualify, and we went in to talk to my recruiter and learned a little more about it, and it sounded like something I’d like to do and long process later, I’ve sworn in and I’m shipping out in August.”

Once enlisted, reservists must attend Initial Active Duty and Advanced Individual Training.

“I can’t [be drafted] until I come back from my basic and AIT training just to make sure I’m mentally and physically ready,” Weixelman said. “Even if I’m in college, they can draft me out to somewhere local.”

While in reserves, the military provides personnel with health and life insurance, as well as the flexibility to live where they want as they pursue education and careers.

“As a military child, I also have my G.I. Bill, but as a part of the military, I also get my own,” junior Jordan Lutz said. “It’ll help me pay for college, and as a reserve member, I can move whenever I want and they’re going to very hard to get me to a town the college that I want to. So, they’re helping me a bunch in that aspect.”

Lutz will be working for the Army Reserves next year as a senior.

“With me being in clubs and such, I just can’t go to certain weekend gigs,” Lutz said. “So I just got to fit it around my schedule, keep in touch with the school because if I don’t keep my morality up and fail out of school, I will get kicked out of the military and lose all that payment and stuff.”

Though the likelihood of being drafted is low, some have mixed emotions about joining the military.

“It’s a mixed emotion,” Weixelman said. “I’m excited to serve my country, but also it’s like it’s a new thing.”