Starbucks Partnership With Arizona State University Celebrates 10,000 College Graduates

The Starbucks College Achievement Plan (SCAP) has achieved a major milestone – 10,000 Starbucks employees have now earned their baccalaureate degree through the company’s partnership with Arizona State University (ASU). The achievement was celebrated at Arizona State University’s spring commencement ceremony on May 8, where about 1,000 new SCAP graduates were eligible to participate.

SCAP, introduced in 2014, gives all of Starbuck’s U.S. employees an opportunity to earn their first-time bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University with 100% upfront tuition coverage. It has undergone a number of enhancements since its inception.

For example, in 2015, Starbucks expanded the benefits of the program by allowing partners who are serving or have served in the U.S. military to designate an additional family member to receive SCAP benefits.

Then, in 2017, Starbucks and ASU introduced the “Pathway to Admission,” which gave employees who are academically inadmissible to ASU the ability to work toward admission, with credit conversion costs fully covered.

In 2021, to further enable employees to enroll in SCAP, Starbucks began covering all tuition and fees upfront, removing the barrier of waiting for a reimbursement.

And April 2022 saw the launch of the ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and Planet, a new research and rapid innovation facility created to find new ways to design, build and operate Starbucks.

SCAP is available to all U.S. Starbucks employees who are benefits eligible, working 20 hours/week. Currently, more than 23,000 Starbucks employees are working toward a degree through SCAP, and almost 90% of stores have at least one worker participating in the program. According to company, nearly 20% of people who apply to Starbucks say that SCAP was a major motivation for them. Over 20% of the enrollees are first-generation college students.

All SCAP courses are offered online through ASU by the same faculty who teach on-campus courses. There is no “handcuff” on participants – they are not required to stay with the company post-graduation or pay back any of the costs associated with their degree.

The top industries for SCSP graduates have been in health care, education, software & IT, finance, and the non-profit sector. And SCAP does appear to improve retention within the company as well; SCAP participants are retained 50% longer than non participants, and they are promoted at three times the rate of promotion for employees with the U.S. retail sector overall.

The program now offers participants the choice to enroll in any of more than 140 bachelor’s level degree programs. In addition, it provides other services, including;

• An orientation class specially designed for SCAP scholars;
• Enrollment coaches and academic and financial aid advisors; and
• Free online tutoring, 24/7.

I asked Jon Liechty, senior vice president, U.S. Retail Operations, Starbucks, who earned a degree in Philosophy through SCAP after he had dropped out of college 20 years earlier, what he saw as the program’s best quality. He told me that he “was incredibly proud of the partnership” and said that the chance to be with the graduates in Tempe “makes it impossible to be a cynic about the promise we’ve made our partners and the impact that it’s had on their lives. How can you be anything but hopeful about this experience. ”

Starbucks has indicated that it’s committed to helping at least 25,000 employees graduate by 2025, which equates to an expected investment from the company of up to $250 million or more.