Many commissioned officers are granted time to get advanced degrees. Those degrees must be related (at least ostensibly) to their military specialty/qualifier.
University of Phoenix, just as University of Maryland, is licensed by the military to provide on-base classes leading to a degree. AFAIK, those are the two “biggies” providing classes. There’s another outfit that used to provide classes for a degree in aviation, but I cannot remember the name of the outfit–maybe they’re still doing so.
There is (or at least was) also Pepperdine University, who offered a Masters program, and Chapman University, who offered undergrad degrees. They are both “Christian”, I believe, but the extension campuses have local accredited teachers from local colleges and universities. I’m actually a graduate of Chapman and can attest to really, truly taking classes, reading texts, doing term papers, etc., going at night after working all day. They took most of my credits from the two universities that I attended full time prior to that, and I had to complete 30 credit hours with them to graduate.
CWOs and LDOs are not eligible for command at sea, and can only be in command of ashore units relevant to their career field.
Wait, what? Your base’s Education Office/ESO wasn’t aware of the “contract for degree” program? Those bastages!
Hmm, that explains why the LDO was brought up earlier in context of that man I know who went from enlisted to lieutenant commander. No, he never had a command at sea. My impression is he spent his time on land. In the about 12 years I was friends with his mother-in-law, I never heard about him being gone for six months at sea. His assignments always seemed to be the kind where he was home at night.
They can go to sea, they just can’t captain the ship.
Here’s something I’ve always wondered: what’s a chief? Where does he fit on the enlisted contiuum? Is it a Navy-only thing? I remember hearing the master chief rank for the first time when Halo came out and wondering why that dude got two ranks. 
It comes down to Needs of the (insert service here).
There are X number of slots available and there are X + 100 bodies who want to apply for a slot, how do you decide? You winnow based on what has proven applicable in the past: college degree for officers; college degree + 20/20 vision + height/weight that will fit in the cockpit; and you still have more bodies than openings. So you consider GPA, type of degree, letters of recommendation, ect, till you get X number of bodies = X number of slots.
(left out longwinded story about my General Studies liberal arts chucklehead degree & the OCS test & OCS & earning a commission)
A Chief is a senior Enlisted rank in the Navy and Coast Guard. A Chief is an E-7, a Senior Chief is an E-8 and a Master Chief is an E-9. There is a bit of a dividing line between E-6 and E-7 then, partially because the Chief has the same uniform (different insignia of course) as Officers and Chiefs are viewed as middle management while E-6 and below are viewed as workers, for lack of a better term. Chiefs are more leaders and certainly technical experts. As a junior Officer, I would never be expected to fix the sonar gear. The E-6 and below would be expected to turn the wrenches and to the actual labor and work. The Chief would manage the work, and provide technical expertise and guidance to the junior Enlisted.
Within the Navy, I’d say most Chiefs think the “Chiefs mess” or Chiefs community is amazingly critical to the Navy and are very special. I think many Officers view this somewhat less so.
The Army, Air Force and Marine Corps has less of this dividing line I’d say.
Thanks.
My Naval experience viewpoint was along the lines of the petty officers (E-4, E-5 & E-6) being working supervisors (more senior = less work & more instruction/supervision), while the divisional Chief was the overall roaming supervisor/quality assurance checker of the workspaces/shops.
I vaguely recall Embry-Riddle being on post when I was in Germany. When I was CONUS many of my duty stations had a state university or community college represented or near by. At Ft. Bliss I took classes at the UTEP campus.
As for Warrant Officers, most of the ones I worked with were running tech shops or helicopter pilots. All of them were college grads, but I am not sure how many of them entered service with a diploma. Most NCOs past E5 often had degrees, but that was probably related to the competitive promotion process and easy access to classes.
As for the requirement for commissioned officers to have a degree, as someone else pointed out, the Green to Gold program was designed to allow enlisted soldiers to go to school and get a degree. My CO made that offer when I decided not to reenlist again and explained it was to go to school.
That’s it! Thanks.
Just to clarify for others who may be reading this, note that “Chief” is short for “Chief Petty Officer.”
Also, as a former Navy commissioned officer, I think that Chief Petty Officers are absolutely critical. I would never have survived my first sea tour without my division chief. He was an indispensable liaison between me (a division officer) and the more junior enlisted personnel.
So a “master chief” is formally a Master Chief Petty Officer?
Yes. And don’t you forget it! 
I won’t. But only because I could never learn a title that long in the first place. 
You don’t get off that easy, RNATB, you have to put the rating in also: Master Chief Boatswain’s Mate, Senior Chief Yeoman, Chief Master-at-Arms, ect.