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.

Comments

No good for anthropologists

[nowsharing]

In the field of anthropology, we typically get our degree first before moving on to Starbucks employment.

Re:No good for anthropologists

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

Always remember that your barista responsibilites change based on your field. As a former archaeologist, I cannot tell you how many nazis I killed while working at Starbucks.

Re:No good for anthropologists

[new death barbie]

If I was in Starbucks and had ordered that double skinny latte... I would drink it, sir.

Re:No good for anthropologists

[TapeCutter]

I know it's a joke but whenever I hear people rag on "burger flippers" I'm reminded that the CEO of McDonalds is a former burger flipper. Personally I'd much rather hire a kid who wasn't afraid to scrub toilets to pay for an education, than some upper class ponce breezing through life on their parents dime.

BSES

[MobyDisk]

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)

Re:BSES

[Dragonslicer]

Just tossing out a stray thought, but how much value would there be in having maybe one person at a Starbucks with some sort of culinary arts education/training? I'm sure it wouldn't be much, but it was an interesting thought I had.

Re:BSES

[newcastlejon]

Not much, I suspect. Starbucks are a lot like McDonalds in that uniformity will always take precedence over creativity. It may not be the best coffee/burger, but the customer always knows what to expect.

Re:BSES

[NoKaOi]

Just tossing out a stray thought, but how much value would there be in having maybe one person at a Starbucks with some sort of culinary arts education/training? I'm sure it wouldn't be much, but it was an interesting thought I had.

Value? None. It breaks the Starbucks model. Starbucks is really just a fast-food place like McDonald's, the employees at their locations are not chefs and don't come up with the recipes. They are not supposed to make culinary decisions, they follow a specific set of procedures, and although those procedures may be more complex and require more skill than at other fast-food restaurants, they are still a set of procedures that somebody else came up with.

Re:BSES

[McGruber]

Just tossing out a stray thought, but how much value would there be in having maybe one person at a Starbucks with some sort of culinary arts education/training?

That would increase healthcare costs because Starbucks employees trained in culinary arts would need to consume a lot of antidepressants.

In civilized countries...

[Stormwatch]

In civilized countries, education is public and fully tax-paid anyway.

Re:In civilized countries...

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when we used to win wars instead of getting locked into fruitless decade-long quagmires, we also managed to subsidize college tuition more than we do now....

Re:In civilized countries...

[wiggles]

See, what happened to those days was that gradually, colleges realized they could keep raising prices past what the government could pay, because they knew families of students could pay more. Colleges built palaces to "education", dormitories with gold plated faucets, gymnasiums, new buildings that were completely unnecessary simply because they could. All the while, tuition kept going up - the government saw that tuition was increasing at universities, so they'd raise the amount of subsidy, then the college would raise tuition above that to the point where families were bled just as much as before. Eventually, the bottom dropped out, the government said enough is enough, and held or dropped subsidies. Colleges, so used to 10% pay raises for tenured professors and unwilling to live with 20 year old dorms, screamed - "they're cutting our funding!" - so they just saddle their students with the maximum loan allowance they can - because they know they can get it - just to keep the gravy train coming. The more the government allows students to borrow, the more money colleges will charge.

It's economics at work. It's called Rent Seeking Behavior. If there is money to be gotten, it will be.

Here's a journal paper someone wrote on it.

Here's a bunch of resources on this from a think tank.

Re:In civilized countries...

[allcoolnameswheretak]

World War 2 dragged the U.S. out of recession. Since then, the military and all the ecosystem surrounding it has become a cornerstone of U.S. economy The modern idea is not to win wars, but to have perpetual war. A reason to pump all that tax money into U.S. arms industries, making some people rich and allowing many others to keep their jobs; workers, engineers, managers, contractors, lobbyists.

To enable this "economic system" that puts money into military instead of more productive endeavors or social welfare, you need a constant threat. A constant legitimacy to put money into defense and a patriotic citizenship to go along with it.

Re:In civilized countries...

[Calavar]

Those are terrible counterexamples, because US investments in Europe, South Korea and Japan easily payed themselves back a thousand fold. The cold war was really a form of modern mercantilism. Whereas 18th century mercantilist empires took raw materials from their dependent nations and sent back manufactured goods, 20th century mercantilists (the US, and to a lesser extent the USSR) built silos abroad and sold arms and bonds to their dependent nations. In return the US got enormous shares of stock in companies like Renault, Dassault, Volkswagen, Daimler, Samsung, and Nippon, sources of cheap manufactured goods, and Iranian oil (Saudi oil after the Shah was overthrown).

We Americans like to pretend that we have the largest economy in the world because our parents and grandparents were harder working, more intelligent, and more creative than foreigners. The reality is that we are on top because we were the only nation to come out of the second world war unscathed (thanks you, Atlantic Ocean), and we used that position to take advantage of everyone else.

Winning wars = winning money. Fighting 13+ year unwinnable wars = losing money, but that is a separate issue.

Re:In civilized countries...

[egranlund]

Kind of funny that the journal paper on rent seeking is protected by a $44 paywall...

Re:Nothing to see here

[plopez]

ASU has swimming pools

Serious degrees

[PopeRatzo]

This is good news for all the departments of gender studies and theater programs.

Online?

[qpqp]

The benefit is through a partnership with Arizona State University's online studies program. [emphasis added]

Really? Wow. Great, but WTF?
They get free online courses? These are only a google (or itunes U) search away regardless of this partnership.

Re:Online?

[MAXOMENOS]

The difference is that ASU will actually confer a degree for all that online classwork, provided the student gets good enough grades. Once can even obtain degrees in EE or CS through their online program. The main thing the student misses out on is campus life.

IRS Rules

[EmagGeek]

Is Starbucks also going to pay the employees' income tax on the amount of annual tuition benefit in excess of $5250?

Re:Nothing to see here

[rogoshen1]

filled with beer.

Re:Nothing to see here

[exomondo]

Ah the /. cynics are out in force ready to put a negative spin on whatever they can.