Starbucks to give free college education to employees

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced the company’s plan to provide a free online college education to thousands of its workers, and employees who take advantage of the free education have no obligation to stay with the company.
The arrangement with Arizona State University provides the opportunity to any of the 135,000 people employed in the United States who work a minimum of 20 hours weekly and have the ability to gain admission to the school. A barista with two years of college credit will receive full tuition paid and those with less credits will still have part of their college paid for – although for many it will end up free with financial aid.
While many employers offer tuition reimbursement to its employees, its usually with strings attached. Typically new employees are exempt or the employees are required to stay with the company for a specified number of years.
Starbucks is giving this opportunity to all of its employees from the day they start with the company. They can study anything they would like and leave Starbucks at anytime – and of course many will leave knowing they can obtain higher-paying jobs.
Starbucks has offered its employees things that many food and drinks chains do not, such as health insurance for even those who work part-time and giving employees stock options. These perks may contribute to the company’s great success.
While the number of employees who will take advantage of the program are unknown, the company states that employee surveys show that many of its employees have stated that they want to earn a degree.
What Starbucks is doing for their employees will change things their lives and our country. Bravo to this company for giving thousands of people the opportunity to graduate college debt-free and making the world a better place.
For students that can’t afford an education unless they take out student loans working at Starbucks just became appealing! I would have loved to work for a company and have them pay for my education! What a great innovation!
What do these employees have to do to get this “free education”? Nothing in this world is really free! This must be some kind of way to get college educated employees who have to work for Starbucks for a time in order to “pay back” that free education!
Good for Starbucks! Good public relations with the general public, good recruitment tool for new employees, and good retention tool to keep employees. Perhaps more importantly, this is proof of increasing acceptance of online college education and the cost effectiveness of the online delivery method over the traditional brick-and-morter educational delivery menthod.
Don’t the employees own stock in the company? If so, this is completely a no-brainer as the owners are the employees… Good for you Starbucks! I just wish my company would follow in your footprints…
Bravo! — here is the Live Ink version of the article, for faster reading with deeper comprehension.
Live Ink technology will help raise college students’ grades, so they can attain their degrees with this wonderful opportunity.
http://www.liveink.com/Walker/Starbucks_to_pay_college_tuition.htm