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Credit: Gunnar Rathbun/AP Images for Walmart
What employers want from colleges in tuition benefit partnerships
We asked leaders from Walmart, Chipotle, JetBlue and Uber how they're
using education benefits as more companies connect the offering to
their bottom line.
Hallie Busta
Nov. 26, 2019
Turnover is high on the front lines of retail and foodservice, where
low wages and long hours make job-hopping common, even expected.
But some companies are adding a perk they hope will encourage workers
to stick around: the opportunity to earn a college degree at little or
no cost.
In the last year or so, several major employers in sectors that rely
heavily on low-wage labor have added free or highly subsidized degrees
and certificates to their benefits packages. Others have expanded
programs already in place.
Tuition benefits aren't new to corporate America. According to one
recent report, nine in 10 companies surveyed offer some type of
education benefit, with tuition assistance being the most common.
But how companies think about education benefits is changing, said
Haley Glover, strategy director at the Lumina Foundation, which has
studied the impact of such programs.
Rather than using them to attract more workers, as with health care and
retirement plans, companies are increasingly tying them to their
strategic goals. That includes reducing turnover, upskilling workers,
and expanding and diversifying their talent pipelines.
And by paying for the program outright in many cases, rather than
asking employees to front the cost, employers are making it easier for
workers to use the benefit. Many of the programs are also offered
online.
Companies "view this as an investment," and they are building programs
that are "more mindful of the people who will be participating in
them," Glover said.
The shift comes at a critical moment for higher education, as colleges
recruit more widely in anticipation of having to compete for fewer
traditional-age students. Employers are serving up a potential
solution, but they have their own requirements colleges must consider
as part of the deal. Among them, what's included in the curriculum and
whether the college has shown it can help adult learners.
"Now there is just a more national conversation that employers and
higher education need to be sitting down and talking more about
specific needs back and forth," said Marie Cini, president of the
Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL).
'The business case'
Last year, Walmart announced its U.S. employees could pay $1 a day to
earn a bachelor's or associate degree in business or supply-chain
management. The company has since added technology and health care
programs.
It picked those fields because that's where it expects to add jobs,
said Ellie Bertani, senior director of digital transformation at
Walmart U.S.
"It comes down to the business case for our company," she said. "It's
hard to get extensive programs like this over the line if you can't
convince executives there's going to be a clear return on investment."
For Walmart, that return includes retaining employees and being able to
move workers into roles that align with their new credentials. The
latter, she said, "is going to be the most powerful outcome for the
business."
Chipotle, which recently added a free tuition program, is keeping its
offering similarly focused on fields related to its operations.
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