The Air Force could save hundreds of millions of dollars each year by moving service members less frequently and extending assignment lengths, according to a new RAND study that also warns such changes would require a major cultural shift across the force. 

The study, commissioned by the Air Force Personnel Center, examined how longer assignments and fewer Permanent Change of Station moves would affect Air Force budgets, readiness and retention. Researchers found the service could achieve substantial savings by extending overseas tours and lengthening many stateside assignments. 

Specifically, RAND found that extending certain overseas tours could generate roughly $186 million in annual savings, while enforcing five-year assignments in the continental United States could save another $240 million annually. Those savings would come primarily from reducing operational and rotational PCS costs, which make up the largest share of the Air Force’s PCS budget. 

But attitudes toward moving vary significantly across the force, which will complicate any effort to meaningfully overhaul the assignment system. 

“We analyzed exit survey data, and we found that junior enlisted service members tend to leave the service and cite that they’re moving too infrequently. They want to move more so they’re leaving the service because they wanted to join to see the world, but they’re not moving enough. Whereas officers, they leave because they’re moving too much. When they’re completing an exit survey, they’re indicating too many PCS moves as a reason to justify and explain why they’re leaving,” Kelly Atkinson, political scientist at RAND, told Federal News Network. 

“What we found is that the Air Force can capitalize on the variation that exists at present in the population of service members. They can think about preferences that service members have for how often they want to move, and they can adjust policy to maximize some of those preferences,” she added.

The study comes as the Pentagon looks to scale back funding for PCS moves — last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the military services to cut discretionary PCS spending by 10% in fiscal 2027, 30% by fiscal 2028 and 50% by 2030.  

“As we look across the department for efficiencies, the military departments must determine which PCS moves are most critical to support operational requirements and key professional development. Lower-priority PCS moves should be reduced for service members and their families seeking greater geographic stability,” Hegseth wrote in a memo.

The Air Force began examining its assignment policy before the Pentagon directed the military services to rethink PCS moves. But once Hegseth’s memo came out, RAND’s focus shifted toward helping the Air Force evaluate how reducing assignments would affect costs, as well as the development and career progression of Airmen. 

To better understand the challenges associated with the current assignment system, RAND conducted a stakeholder workshop focused on evaluating potential changes to assignment policy. Lisa Harrington, senior operations researcher at RAND, said one of the biggest takeaways from the workshop was just how deeply rooted the belief is within the Air Force that frequent moves are necessary for career progression. 

“The amount of moves that an officer might make on their pathway to becoming a general officer or even a colonel and being promotable along the way, that’s really cultural, that’s really internal to the Air Force. There’s no hard evidence that they lean on to say that you must make that many moves, because then you’re going to learn the things you need to learn for you to be a qualified officer at that rank,” Harrington said.

Atkinson said that the process and the system of career development are “not causing each other,” and changing assignment lengths would require the Air Force to rethink how it evaluates career development, promotion pathways and professional advancement. 

“If you change one, in this instance, if you start with changing the length of assignment, that’s your baseline, and then afterwards, you’ll just have to adjust career development models and communicate that to the force. It’s not an impossible problem. You simply have to decide, ‘We’re moving, we’re changing one aspect, and as a result, career development will have to change,’” Atkinson said.

“The workshop showed us that the cultural expectation for moving associated with positive career development is deeply entrenched within the force,” she added.

Ultimately, if the Air Force wants to generate significant cost savings by changing assignment policy, it would need to make “overarching, large-scale changes — small adjustments will not yield enduring cost savings results,” Atkinson said. 

“With that in mind, we recommend that the Air Force decide what level of change it wants to make, and that could be in order to meet department’s directives for cost savings, or it could be to make a systemic change for the service itself, because that’s where the Air Force wants to go,” she said.

Implementation, however, would be difficult. 

“People have a certain expectation for what their career will look like. People have an expectation for what their PCs cycle will look like and how that will connect to career development,” Atkinson said. “We recommend that if they do pursue changes, clear strategic communication to the field is necessary because you want to make sure everyone understands the reason for these changes and how they will impact their career development progression.”

Researchers also recommend exploring AI-enabled assignment systems for enlisted personnel. While officers already use a more advanced matching system that allows them to input assignment preferences, researchers said similar capabilities do not yet exist for enlisted service members because of the scale and complexity of the enlisted force. 

“The ultimate takeaway from this project for me is that if the Air Force wants to change the assignment system…I do think that it’s not an impossible problem. It’s simply challenging because of many constraints and many well-established processes. To change it, the Air Force will have to do so at an instant institutional level with intent to change,” Atkinson said.

If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.

Copyright © 2026 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.