$1 A Day Buys Walmart Associates A College Degree

Walmart Media Library

FEB 2016 Walmart associates celebrate completing Walmart Academy Training during a graduation ceremony at the Fayetteville Walmart Academy grand opening.

Walmart announced this morning, the same day its Annual Formal Business Meeting for Shareholders begins, a new education benefit for all full-time, part-time and salaried Walmart and Sam’s Club store, supply chain and home office associates that covers the cost for associate and bachelor's degrees in Business or Supply Chain Management. On the conference call that announced the program to the media yesterday, Julie Murphy EVP of People at Walmart said that this program was key to “win the future of retail.”

In a statement released by Walmart, Greg Foran, CEO of Walmart US said, “Investing in the personal and professional success of our associates is vital to Walmart’s future success. We know training and learning opportunities empower associates to deliver for customers while growing and advancing in their careers.”

If this program is as successful as Walmart execs hope, they estimate up to 68,000 Walmart associates will participate, it would give Walmart the most scalable approach to helping America’s workforce go to college. Starbucks College Achievement Plan, currently the nation’s largest has enrolled about 7,000 according to Rachel Carlson, CEO and co-founder of Guild Education which helped Walmart develop the program, and also covers the cost full tuition coverage for part-time and full time employees to earn a bachelor’s degree online at Arizona State University.

The Lumina Foundation, who has agreed to research and measure the impact of Walmart’s program through an independent evaluation, reports that approximately 40% of Americans have a college degree - a far lower rate than for citizens of South Korea, Japan, Canada, Ireland and the UK to name just a few, where degree are issued to over 55% for those aged 25 to 34.

The program was designed, according to Walmart, to give their associates more confidence, improve their lives and help them with their careers; whether they continue their careers at the retailer or move on. The only requirement to participate is that you have to be working at Walmart over 90 days to register for the program. There is no requirement to stay with the company after graduation. The chain says its objectives for the program are to increase associate retention, improve engagement with associates, improve customer service and to increase the number of applications for people to work at the company.

Walmart says they want to make college accessible and relevant to all their associates and these programs are designed to attend around their work schedules: at night and on the weekends. Walmart associates can choose to do their college work either through distance learning or if local to the locations of the universities attend in-person if they offer part-time courses that work within their schedule.

The program kicks off today with two curriculums, Business or Supply Chain Management for associate and bachelor's degrees with additional curriculums to follow at three non-profit universities: University of Florida which is ranked #17 in the nation for its business school by U.S. News and World Report, Brandman University and Bellevue University. The five-year long program will include what Carlson calls “having a personal coach for education” from the application process up through graduation.

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