Starbucks will pay full or partial college tuition for its 135,000 employees nationwide in a new program announced Monday.
The Starbucks College Achievement Plan will be available to any of its employees, called partners on the Starbucks website, who work 20 hours per week.
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In collaboration with Arizona State University, the company will pay partial tuition reimbursements for students who are freshmen and sophomores and full tuition reimbursements for juniors and seniors to get one of 40 undergraduate degrees offered online, the company website said.
“The last few years in America we certainly have seen a fracturing of what I would loosely describe as the American dream or the American promise,” said Starbucks President and CEO Howard Schultz in a video on the company’s website. “There’s no doubt that the inequality within the country has created a situation where many, many Americans have been left behind. The question I think for all of us is should we accept that or should we try and do something about it?”
In the video, Starbucks points out that college tuition has risen 80 percent in the last decade, and said 70 percent of its work force is college-aged students.
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U.S. News & World Report study ranked ASU the ninth best online bachelor’s degree program in the country and said it had a $460 per credit hour online rate in 2013-14.
Starbucks posted numerous interviews online with students currently working for the business who want to pursue a college education. Michael Bojorquez said he plans to become the first person in his family to get a college degree.
“It blows my mind, to be honest,” Bojorquez said. “Knowing that Starbucks is going to help me with my education makes me love being a barista and love this company even more.”
Bojorquez told his mother through Skype about the opportunity Starbucks is offering and she cried.
“This is something big, and you can become something big,” she told him.
Closing his laptop, Bojorquez put his head in his hands and cried silently, Starbucks said.
“This changes everything for us,” he said. “This changes everything for me.”
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