Did you hear that Starbuck's is offering its employees free tuition to college?

Today’s NY Times had an article with the headline something about it not being all it’s cracked up to be, or that there were limitations or something. I didn’t read and it’s too late for me to search now. If someone wants to go on the NY Times site they may find it, or I will link it tomorrow.

Full tuition reimbursement is offered to juniors and seniors only. Freshmen and sophomores get a small discount. Only for Arizona State online. Only if you work 20+ hours a week. They must complete 21 credits (at an upfront cost of over $10,000) before they are eligible for payout. Some of the cost is discounted upfront as part of a partnership between Starbucks and ASU.

All of this counts against the students in their search for alternate financial aid: Their pay from working, as well as the discount and the tuition reimbursement. So they won’t have the option of using need-based aid.

Yeah, thanks. The CEO of Starbuck’s and Jon Daily sure made it sound like a better deal for the employees. I guess that’s why they get the big bucks.

Of course there are limitations and qualifications – it only makes sense. Schultz is a great businessman, but he can’t just give away money. He would be quickly taken advantage of by the unscrupulous people in the world.

That said, I think it’s a fine idea, helpful to youth and generally a positive for the country. More CEOs should think outside the box.

@elbanditoroso

I think there’s a difference between limitations like, paying more for better grades and outright only allowing them to go to one online school. One has to be a certain type of learner to even gain any benefit from an online school, much less do two full years there to complete a degree.

@elbanditoroso

It’s a fine PR idea, but it’s not particularly helpful to youth nor positive for the country.

Here is the list of majors one can try for at ASU online.

Lots of business, nutrition, and liberal arts.

It seems as if, with the rules and limitations outlined by @Seek above, they might be better off going (or at least starting) at a community college first.

Nothing in this world is free.

Dick’s has a better package, and they’ve been doing it for decades.

@jerv

The folks running that must not be great businesspeople. Giving employees those kind of benefits? Yeah, that place ain’t gonna last. How on Earth could they ever hope to make a profit doing stuff like that?

@Darth_Algar: If you read about the educational aspect of Dick’s, they pay $3k for the first two years and up to 8k for the second two years. That’s nice but it’s not like it’s going to bankrupt them. It’s not like they’re paying for everyone to attend Harvard. Also, they don’t say how many educational scholarships they give out or what the criteria is. They may pay for only a handful of people or they may pay for hundreds. Who knows. They talk about applying and the rules for employees to have to work a certain number of hours per week for at least two months, but they don’t say anything else about the criteria or who gets it or what quantity of employees get it.

Amazingly, after 16 years on the internet I still overestimate people’s ability to pick up obvious sarcasm.

The criteria for Dick’s is plainly laid out here.

And if you can work 20 hours a week at Dick’s and still make it to class at Harvard, they’ll happily pay Harvard.

@Seek: Yes, I read that from @jerv‘s link. When you read the details, you will see it’s how I specified. 3k one year, 3k one year, 8k one year and 8k one year = 22k total. So it sounds wonderful, but it’s not 22k per year. When I first read ”$22,000 toward the college of your choice” it sounded great, but it’s not huge. It’s better than nothing, but not like it’s a full scholarship.

No, but you do get to go to the school you want to go to, instead of getting stuck taking business or nutrition classes at some online school that no one has ever really heard of, and then being on the line for the entire thing when it turns out you suck at online classes.

@Seek: True. Good point.

I had no idea what our local community college costs, and I just googled it. It’s 6k per semester, full time. I always hear what a “good” college costs – at least 50k per year (something like Boston College). Just for comparison’s sake. Just for me to realize what part of that would be paid for an employee of Dick’s.

They also offer more in substantial benefits than just some financial assistance for college. Who’s ever heard of fast food offering health and dental to employees lower than, maybe, store managers?

@jca Why do you think I never got to use my GI Bill? I would’ve needed a full-time job to pay tuition even with assistance, and another to get things like food and shelter. Try being a full-time student while working 80+ hours a week :p

@Darth_Algar It’s only obvious if we can see your face or hear your voice. If you don’t get that limitation, maybe you’re not ready for the internet.

Sarcasm is apparently denoted by using this sign ~

The entire point of sarcasm is to separate those who understand it from those who don’t. The tilde is a gesture of kindness and the voice I use in my head to interpret it is like a 13 year old girl from the 80s. “Oh, that is soooo coool… ** Overexaggerated eyeroll **”

Much sarcasm will be found on the internet and on this site in particular without the tilde. Make peace with that fact.

@Dan_Lyons: Yes, that’s the tip-off for sarcasm, but that was not used in @Darth_Algar‘s posts above.

@Seek I’m not about to trade my engineering skills for the sake of having the same social skills as normal people.