U.S. Companies Lure Hourly Workers With College Tuition Perks

When Daniella Malave started working for Chipotle at 17, the main benefit she was seeking was free food. As it turned out, she also got a free college education, Dee-Ann Durbin and Anne Dinnocenzio reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Some critics question whether the programs are papering over deeper problems, like pay so low that workers can’t afford college without them or hours so erratic that it’s too hard to go to school in person.

Malave completed two years of community college with annual stipends of $5,250 from Chipotle. She later earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from Wilmington University in 2020.

Chipotle is one of more than a dozen companies that have launched college programs for their front-line workers over the last decade. Since 2021 alone, Walmart, Amazon, Target, Macy’s, Citi, and Lowe’s have made free college available to more than 3 million US workers.

But some critics question whether the programs are papering over deeper problems, like pay so low that workers can’t afford college without them or hours so erratic that it’s too hard to go to school in person.

“I do think they are providing these programs to skirt around the issue of just paying people more, giving people more certainty, improving their quality of life,” said Stephanie Hall, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.

Hall said a lack of data also makes it difficult to judge the programs’ effectiveness. Chipotle, Walmart, Amazon, and Starbucks, for example, don’t share graduation rates, in part because they’re hard to calculate because students often take a semester off or take more than four years to earn a degree.

Rachel Carlson, CEO of Guild Education, which also doesn’t reveal graduation rates, says the more relevant data is whether college classes help employees get promotions or wage increases.

Companies see the programs as a way to recruit and retain workers in a tight labor market or train them for management positions. For hourly employees, the programs remove the financial barriers to obtaining a degree.

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