<p>OK, first, I have to defend UofI, as its engineering school is one of the top rated in the nation. (No, I didn’t go there.)</p>
<p>Second, ROTC does not always pay for all tuition costs. They have competitive scholarships, and only some of them are full tuition. Most are capped at a certain value (pretty good, but maybe not a full-ride).</p>
<p>To the OP,
If you want to be a doctor in the military, I’d recommend a specific program/scholarship for that. The service academies do allow a few grads to go to med school, but that is a small minority of students. ROTC numbers will probably be fairly similar, except for medical related scholarship programs. </p>
<p>On the engineering side, I only really have a vague idea about the AF side of things. That said, many officer engineers move past the research and testing part of their careers pretty early. A lot of them become project managers and the like.</p>