The only thing that rivals a round of iced, venti, nonfat lattes with your sisters is a round of iced, venti, nonfat lattes with your sisters sans the feeling of regret and nausea caused by the night before. Starbucks is known nationwide as the sorority girl’s liquid cure-all to life, and now there’s even more of a reason to support the remedial franchise–Starbucks gives back to its employees in an incomparable way.
Starting this fall, Starbucks will launch the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, which is a program that will enable employees across the country to get free college education through Arizona State University’s online curriculum. Just announced Monday by CEO Howard Shultz, the goal of the program is to make higher education more accessible to the 135,000 motivated individuals who work at Starbucks, 72 percent of whom have not yet completed their degrees.
ASU’s online program charges tuition upward of $10,000 a year, but baristas who work 20 hours a week and enroll as freshmen and sophomores are eligible for $6,500 on average in scholarships. As for those who enroll during their junior or senior year? Their tuition is free.
Once in the program, employees can choose from 40 majors, and they’re not even required to commit to stay with Starbucks after they graduate.
So instead of telling someone to kindly go fuck himself the next time he gives you shit for being a Starbucks drinker, you can gladly point out that, yes, you are waiting in a long line to pay $6 for a caffeinated beverage–but you’re also helping to finance the baristas’ educations, too.
Suck on that, scrooges..
[via Huffington Post, The Daily Beast]