Dive Brief:
- Starbucks and Arizona State University are partnering to provide the Seattle-based coffee retailer's employees with a tuition reimbursement program.
- Essentially, depending on a worker's situation, the program would see Starbucks and ASU pay an average of $6,500 of the combined $20,000 in tuition costs for the freshman and sophomore years of an online degree program through the university.
- Starbucks will also phase out an existing tuition reimbursement program that applied to a select number of schools.
Dive Insight:
To be eligible for the tuition reimbursement in the ASU program, employees will have to work 20 hours or more per week. The program is expected to be offered to 135,000 Starbucks employees.
The coffee company isn't the only company that offers tuition reimbursement through partnerships with schools. UPS, for example, has also long offered an "Earn & Learn" program through the University of Louisville and Jefferson Community and Technical College for those working in its Louisville, KY, Air Operation facility.