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Starbucks Offers Workers 2 Years of Free College
mpicpp writes Starbucks baristas working through college are about to get an extra boost from their employer. The company announced it will offer both full and part-time employees a generous tuition reimbursement benefit that covers two full years of classes. The benefit is through a partnership with Arizona State University's online studies program. Employees can choose from any of more than 40 undergraduate degrees, and aren't limited to only business classes.
In the field of anthropology, we typically get our degree first before moving on to Starbucks employment.
It is just a joint marketing ploy between Starbucks and ASU.
By 2016, the average barista will need at least a 2 year degree to remain competitive. The best ones will have their BSES (Bachelor of science in espresso services)
In civilized countries, education is public and fully tax-paid anyway.
Circumcision is child abuse.
...but most of them are already college graduates anyway.
Was this suppose to be a joke? Or would Starbucks want more B-School majors in their workforce?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Back when I worked for starbucks between 99-04 while in school, they were willing to pay for 2 years towards a business management degree. They must be hurting for publicity lately.
This is good news for all the departments of gender studies and theater programs.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Really? Wow. Great, but WTF?
They get free online courses? These are only a google (or itunes U) search away regardless of this partnership.
a person with an online degree. They are open to fraud by people paying someone for college papers and taking tests.
IT needs more of an trades / apprenticeship model to learning.
at some schools there is to much theory and big skill gaps in the areas covering more of the day to day skills. Yes some theory is good but parts of it are not really that useful vs learning more hands on skills in the field.
Trying to put IT work, networking both WAN and LAN, hardware work, cableing, codeing, QA, research, and others all into CS is bad as some areas need to have there own track and some are very hands with skills that you need to do in an real setting to learn them.
IT has a lot of on going ongoing education but it's time frame is an poor fit for the older College system time tables.
Internships are to hit and miss Apprenticeships are more of formal and last for an extended period of time and have more applicable skills
only one school and does it transfer both ways?
Is Starbucks also going to pay the employees' income tax on the amount of annual tuition benefit in excess of $5250?
Almost 30 years ago I chose employment with a Department of Defense Agency of the day that offered short-term (semester) tuition re-imbursment for courses at undergrad and graduate (I took the graduate courses option) and long-term (12 to 18 months) training at a University on their list (not a virtual class that is hackable).
At this point I would say that hackable (i.e. crackable) courses (for those with the necessary skill-set to do it) such as the Arizona State University are counter productive, i.e. again for those with the skill-set, it's a waste of time with little effort to crack and I would say that NO potential employer, US Government or otherwise would give a one-second notice to such a "Degree" in a live-action interview.
Sorry.
pun intended, given the amount of coffee consumed by college students, this is potentially a net win for SB.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
what are the developers from theory loaded schools like?
2 years worth of coffee would be more expensive.
Just a FYI this covers only company stores, not "licensed" stores (which aren't run by Starbucks, and comprise about 40% of locations). Per: http://www.businessinsider.com... (that being said, good for them).
Ever feel like you are driving the getaway car?
(3 credits) Upon completing this course, students should be able to hear a common first name (CFN), understand it, and spell its most common variant. This prepares the student for more advanced work, such as writing CFNs on cylindrical objects. Can be taken with "Next Steps in English Usage: The Following Customer".
That is a great question. They're not much better. Of course since they're phone screenings, there's a lot of theory questions so the process is stacked against the online guys.
The biggest reason we exclude online candidates is because I don't think any have ever worked-out. The guys that go to a real college obviously will commit to something and follow through. I remember at least a half a dozen guys without real degrees that washed-out before six months. We're in an industry that simply cannot have bugs and have a nine month release cycle that includes three months of rigorous in house testing and about three months of running parallel to the production system and about three months of user acceptance testing so the pressure is high.
Given that Starbucks is bringing more revenue to ASU, want to take a guess at how much Starbucks will actually be paying ASU for this benefit (if anything)? It can't be 50%. I doubt 25%. If I'd have been Starbucks, I'd have asked ASU to pay for the marketing.
How many qualifying Starbucks employees already have undergrad degrees?
How much is Starbucks playing ASU per pupil (if anything)?
What's the value (if any) of an ASU online degree (better than Phoenix, but...)?
What percentage and raw number of Starbucks employees, will choose an ASU online degree over a more traditional degree?
I'd love if the answers to those questions made this program look great, but I doubt they will, or that the cost of the program is more than its marketing value as calculated by the beancounters in Starbucks' corporate offices.
I have no intention to take away from the good-will intentions here. What Starbucks is providing is very nice, and very neat. But you just know that it's profitable too right? So much is likely left out. Obviously starbucks isn't paying full price, business relationships are discounted all the time. And obviously the university is offering retail space to starbucks as a result too. In two years, you'll see government agencies giving money to starbucks for this program, especially as retail profits get channeled through this program's obvious expenses and losses, which will again save starbucks some money in the form of taxes. They'll likely also have avenues where they qualify as a charity, or as an educational agency. And since they are funding later-year students (only teasing early-year students) they'll wind up getting employees who plan to finish university, which means they'll get higher-quality employees from the start -- for those four years at least. And parents won't argue with students working more if that's what's paying for the school.
It's a great business tactic in every way.
In other news, Starbucks to adjust work schedules to 19hrs a week.
"The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing