
Walmart will begin offering to subsidize college tuition for its U.S. workers - DoreenMichele
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/business/walmart-college-tuition.html
======
chipperyman573
>Earlier this year, Walmart raised its base wage $2, to $11 an hour, and
expanded its maternity and family leave benefits

Wow, raising the wage combined with this tuition assistance makes it seem like
Walmart is actually trying not be known as the worst employer out there
anymore - these benefits are better than some of the retail jobs I used to
work a few years ago. I wonder why they suddenly care? Walmart gets its
customers because they have low prices (or at least successfully trick people
into thinking they have low prices), the kind of people who value that are
unlikely to stop shopping at Walmart because of the negative PR around how
they (used to) treat their workers.

~~~
fullshark
They are afraid of Amazon, and realize customer service is going to be their
competitive advantage now that they aren't, nor will be, the cheapest/most
convenient destination into the future.

~~~
skellera
Not for everything but Walmart is cheaper on many things. Amazon used to be
the cheapest but that is no longer the case. People just assume Amazon is the
cheapest for some reason but they’re just the most convenient.

~~~
kinsomo
> People just assume Amazon is the cheapest for some reason

They were for a _long_ time, especially when they didn't collect sales tax.
Many people just stopped comparison shopping and haven't realized the
situation's changed.

> but they’re just the most convenient.

Not necessarily. Oddly enough, Best Buy is the most convenient for me (for
electronics), and it's usually not any more expensive than Amazon, at least
for the stuff I buy. Amazon less convenient due to the hassle with their
delivery delays and packing materials.

~~~
finaliteration
> Best Buy is the most convenient for me (for electronics), and it's usually
> not any more expensive than Amazon

They will also price match Amazon in most cases. I hear a lot of people
complain about Best Buy but I’ve made a few big purchases at my local Best Buy
store and their employees were super helpful and friendly. I’d much rather
shop there and get the item immediately rather than wait two days, personally.

~~~
macNchz
I used to have a very low opinion of Best Buy but I’ve recently found myself
going there for the majority of electronics I buy...no shipping or filtering
through counterfeits like on Amazon, and there’s one that’s open 24/7 within
walking distance of my office in NYC. Employees are friendly and helpful if
not extraordinarily knowledgeable. Hard to beat on the convenience front.

------
indigochill
Reading this headline I was reminded of the cyberpunk dystopia where
corporations own their employees. By colleges costing more than an individual
can afford and corporations paying for an individual's education, you get a
system whereby individuals become effectively indentured servants paying off
education debt to their employer (there are already government jobs where this
is basically the way it goes). Student loans are predatory but at least let
you change employers in theory, but if you're indebted to a specific
corporation then things are potentially even more dire (unless you have other
means to buy your way out).

But on the other hand, I can't blame Walmart or any other non-education
company for high tuition and I think it's good they give employees the
opportunities to get a practical college education.

~~~
morley
I don't think your dystopic vision is what's happening here. From the article:

> The Walmart employees will not be obligated to continue working for the
> company after they get their degrees, and must put up only $1 a day toward
> the cost of classes.

~~~
snackbugs
Perhaps. But it certainly is yet another incremental step, among many others,
back towards that dystopic vision.

~~~
adventured
No it's not. It was much worse before. This is in fact a step forward away
from that dystopic vision.

~~~
zoul
Is it? Wouldn’t it be better if the loans were not needed because the
education would be paid by state? Doesn’t this actually cement the current
situation?

~~~
pchristensen
No - this is a raise in the form of subsidized education, and it's hard to see
how that's worse. I'm very dependent on my employer because I live off of my
salary, but that doesn't make it a dystopia. If they wanted me to learn X, and
paid for my training in X, I may not enjoy that as much as the cash value of
the training but it's still a benefit to me. For Wal-Mart, the employee can
leave whenever, they will either forfeit their incomplete program or graduate
and now have a degree.

This is literally the classic CFO/CEO exchange:

CFO asks CEO: What happens if we spend money training our people and then they
leave?

CEO: What happens if we don't and they stay?

------
travishaby
If anyone is interested in working on our team @ Guild Education, the org.
that is enabling Walmart to make this happen, we have a bunch of Product & Eng
roles open, and many more across departments. We're mostly JS/Ruby on the web
side and Python/Scala on the data side. Careers page link here:
[https://www.guildeducation.com/careers](https://www.guildeducation.com/careers)

------
purple-again
Umm...the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida is not
an easy school to get into. While no where near Ivy league levels its still
considered the best public school in Florida and most high school kids try
their hand at getting in there before settling on UCF or USF (orlanda and
tampa respectively). To a lesser degree the same is true of Miami though a lot
of students there prefer FIU for the culture.

UF's business program takes a TINY portion of community college transfers each
year and sadly most of them fail out of the weed out courses in the first
year.

I am very skeptical of how many Walmart employees will be able to take
advantage of this program. Can anyone with experience at the other schools
listed in this article speak to the difficulty of getting in to them?

~~~
madengr
Business school has weeder courses? Maybe algebra? I thought that was strictly
engineering.

~~~
Tyrek
Stats, Intermediate Accounting, Microeconomic Theory are a couple of the
'weeder' courses off the top of my head.

~~~
ghaff
I did tutoring while I was getting my MBA. Yep. Basically the first year quant
courses: stats, micro, accounting, finance, ops. There were students I tutored
whose math basically ended with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
division. I actually had one ask me to explain graphs (as in cartesian
coordinates) to them.

You can also find a number of books written about 1st year MBA experiences on
this general theme.

~~~
AdamM12
This is the saddest thing I've read today. Also could you provide book titles?

~~~
ghaff
Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA by Peter Robinson

This isn't the one I was thinking of and I only found it because I vaguely
know the author.

Peter Cohen's The Gospel According to the Harvard Business School is another
older one.

There's a third I was thinking of but I don't see it on my shelf and it seems
to be Google resistant.

~~~
AdamM12
Thanks and also did you tutor undergrads or fellow MBA's? Wasn't exactly clear
but sounds like the latter.

~~~
ghaff
Latter. So college graduates but woefully weak in even basic math.

At the time, the school (which was a moderately elite one) even had a "math
camp" prior to classes beginning for those who weren't comfortable with their
math skills. But obviously there's not a lot you can do for students who are
essentially at a grade school level.

------
andrewvc
It's a nice gesture, but it's a perverse incentive. These retail jobs need to
pay a living wage. The philosophy that these jobs are stepping stones, not
destinations, is clearly false. This perspective lets Walmart justify
perpetual starter wages.

~~~
j4kp07
If working retail, mopping floors and stocking shelves is not an entry level
job, in your opinion, then what is?

> These retail jobs need to pay a living wage.

1) A living wage for which city/state and 2) Does this include part time
workers and 3) Define part time?

~~~
s73v3r_
Why should an "entry level" position not pay a living wage? Do those people
not have expenses? Or families?

~~~
gwbas1c
Because the assumption is that "entry level" means someone who's still living
with Mom & Dad; or various other situations. (Leaving jail, recent immigrant,
mother returning to the workforce.)

IE, someone in an "entry level" position is someone who has partial support in
their household.

Of course, there's plenty of good discussion to have about the ethics of this
kind of employment. Needless to say, I prefer to spend my dollars are stores
where "entry level" employees are teenagers, retirees who just want to get out
of the house, and people who need an extra opportunity to make an honest life.

~~~
s73v3r_
So, assumptions that are no longer true, and haven't been for a while?

------
cosmie
It'll be interesting to see what this does to Florida's supply chain program.

I went to a school that's ranked in the top 3 for supply chain programs. And
despite not being in the supply chain program myself, I stumbled into a 6
month internship with a company consistently ranked in the top 2-3 for supply
chain.

Walmart is the type of company that _invents_ supply chain management methods
which eventually get taught in schools. In a similar fashion to how Google
invents solutions and releases whitepapers around those concepts that spawn
entire ecosystems of concepts and systems.

One thing Walmart is notorious for is how they onboard new suppliers. They
effectively dictate the margins they'll let you have on a product. If you tell
them that isn't possible, their SCM division will look over your internal
processes with the fervor of a forensic accountant, and tell you exactly what
you need to do to shape up your operations and get to the level they demand.
If you're a fledgling company that scored a Walmart contract, it can be
incredibly helpful in rapidly evolving your SCM/Logistics. And once you can
service Walmart, you can service any company.

Although I'm not sure if that's offered for all suppliers or just their
smaller suppliers that are at risk of not being able to keep up with Walmart's
volume. And it's not really optional, but rather a form of risk management as
well as price control. If they think you won't be able to deliver, they won't
award you the contract and risk empty shelf space.

I'm curious if they'll take a similar approach to these SCM programs. None of
the universities listed have ranked supply chain programs, but with Walmart
directing their associates to the programs, I doubt they'll stand by and not
demand changes to suite their needs. And with their expertise, they could
easily catapult these programs to top ranked ones.

------
fjsolwmv
Non-paywalled:

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/retail-
careers/...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/retail-
careers/2018/05/30/walmart-employee-perk-college-tuition-subsidies/654980002/)

$365/yr tuition at 3 public colleges, presumably on some bulk discount rate
negotiated with suppliers.

At that rate, everyone attending public college should apply for a job at
Walmart.

> With the new program, they will be able to obtain an associate's or
> bachelor's degree in either business or supply chain management (with more
> degree options expected to be added over time).

So it's effectively outsourced training for Walmart jobs, not a launchpad to
any other skilled career.

~~~
koolba
> At that rate, everyone attending public college should apply for a job at
> Walmart.

This sounds like the plan of getting everyone a fake Canadian ID to get free
healthcare.

------
beaner
Will this allow tuitions to spin further out of control?

~~~
gizmo686
If anything, it would have the opposite effect. Walmart is not offering a
subsidy for any college program. They are offering it for two programs. This
gives Walmart a lot of negotiating power to keep their price down. Further,
unlike a typical 18 year old, Walmart will be a very high information
consumer, and so much more likely to switch providers if their current ones
start to charge higher rates.

~~~
craftyguy
Or, like companies picking employee investment plans and insurance, they'll go
for the lowest bidder.

------
lsc
from the article:

"Full- and part-time Walmart workers can use the subsidy to take courses at
the University of Florida; Brandman University in Irvine, Calif.; and Bellevue
University in Bellevue, Neb."

I don't know what those schools cost, but these don't appear to be nationally
or even regionally ranked universities... meaning you are probably better off
going to a community college and then a state college - both of which are "the
expensive part is your time" even when your time can be bought for walmart
floor wages.

Walmart, I think, would probably be doing better by their employees if they
offered a more traditional tuition reimbursement plan, or setup deals with
more local community colleges.

(that's also not a lot of schools... I'm wondering if this is for an online or
mostly online program?)

~~~
soundwave106
For what it's worth, the University of Florida is ranked #42 in US News's
report ([https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-
florida-1...](https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-
florida-1535)). I'd probably consider it the top public Floridia university.

Brandman appears to be linked with Chapman University and is focused on adult
education. Bellevue University appears to be independent of any university and
is also focused on adult education.

So my guess is UF was chosen in part because it has a long running "distance
and continuing education" department?

~~~
lsc
Interesting. I Looked up the other two schools, but not the University of
Florida, which was unfair of me, as I am personally a little suspicious of the
unranked private schools

------
qop
Google is bad, Microsoft is good, Walmart is turning good.

What the hell timeline are we in right now

This is surely some sort of ploy for tax purposes, right?

If not taxes, something else, it's certainly not a common good proposal.

~~~
gambiting
Wait, what? Since when is Microsoft good?

~~~
maskedSlacker
Whichever team published VS Code seems to be not evil, at least.

~~~
Dirlewanger
VS Code lost me when they repeatedly, and without reason, close GitHub issues
asking why their telemetry can't be disabled.

~~~
jacobsenscott
[https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ#_how-to-
di...](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ#_how-to-disable-
telemetry-reporting)

------
blitmap
But when will Walmart begin scheduling for college students?

~~~
qmarchi
There have been major adjustments in the past two years to account for
schedules. Many WM/Sam's Clubs in college towns will be more than willing to
work around schedules.

------
mathattack
My two cents... This is more about low unemployment than the tax code or
internal goodness.

It’s hard to hire entry level employees and managers. This gives them a leg up
on entry level competition while training new front line managers.

I’m interested to know what kind of deal they struck with the three schools,
as they’re a demanding customer.

------
ggg9990
Shifting some compensation to tuition will likely benefit Walmart in two ways:
1) attract a younger workforce who is less likely to incur health insurance
expense, a strategy they’ve discussed since 2005 [1] and 2) recruit a more
educated employee base who can make college-educated, middle-income customers
feel comfortable shopping at Walmart.

[1] [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/business/walmart-
memo-...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/business/walmart-memo-
suggests-ways-to-cut-employee-benefit-costs.html)

------
vadym909
I know a software engineer who was in Silicon Valley and moved to Bentonville.
He makes $100K in Bentonville vs. the $120K he'd make in Walmart, Sunnyvale.
He pays half the rent he would in Sunnyvale, can buy a big house for $250K
once he gets his downpayment, his wife can go to college subsidized by Walmart
and then gets preferential treatment in getting a job at Walmart. There's no
way he says he'll ever consider moving back to Silicon Valley.

------
misterbowfinger
> The tuition subsidy will apply only to associate and bachelor’s degrees in
> two programs that are somewhat related to retail work, but the areas of
> study could be expanded to other areas in the future, Walmart officials
> said.

Hmmm... sounds _very_ restricted. This feels like either a PR stunt, or
they're catering to programs that only allow Walmart employees to grow within
Walmart and not branch out elsewhere.

The lack of detail seems really suspect.

------
m52go
Grossly inflated tuition prices don't need any more support.

I like Walmart's supposed intentions, but this action makes the core problem
with higher education in America worse.

~~~
protonimitate
Agreed. It's a good look on Walmart's end, but it really doesn't do anything
other than reinforce the idea that college tuition prices are fine as they
are.

If enough companies begin offering this as a perk college tuition prices will
just keep inflating.

~~~
marnett
Corporations are already one of the only realistic ways to attain affordable
healthcare. It seems sensible that higher education joins the basket of
corporate perks.

~~~
m52go
And if you're not lucky enough to work for a company that offers those
perks...what should you do?

It was right after WWII that companies started subsidizing healthcare. Before
that, most items were paid for with cash.

That resulted in...well you know the deal.

------
WindowsFon4life
Walmart still pays more than Target.

~~~
emodendroket
It's amazing to me that Target has managed to cultivate an image as the
kinder, gentler alternative to Walmart.

~~~
cosmie
They have an incredibly sophisticated and data focused marketing department.

Target's marketing division is analogous to Walmart's supply chain division,
in terms of level of optimization and sophistication.

------
tclancy
It's nice that WalMart has done things like this and subsidizing medication
costs but I think the thing we US citizens need to ask is, "What happens when
we farm these incentive decisions out to corporations instead of deciding on
them via government?"

>retailer said it would pay tuition for its workers ... to earn degrees in
either supply chain management or business.

If we let companies decide what education will be subsidized and what will
not, we are going to get a very homogenous (and I would imagine unhealthy) set
of citizens. Even if the faith that capitalism will more efficiently
distribute money than government would holds true, it's not necessarily a
better outcome.

~~~
xexers
I partly agree. But to play devil's advocate:

We have a lot of people graduating with useless degrees like History &
Literature. These useless degrees often land people in a state of debt with no
job. If a corporation(s) decides what degree you should get, there is a higher
likelihood that at the end of your degree, you'll actually get a job.

~~~
patrickcteng
I have a B.A. in History (Pre-industrial Europe and Far East, and post-WWII
American Foreign Policy) degree from UC Davis, and I ended up full-stack
programming for the last 12 years.

I use those History skills daily from writing documentation, synthesizing
concepts into a coherent work, and figuring out the intent of the original
coder.

My History degree is definitely not useless.

~~~
mathinpens
That sounds like a bundle of fun. I bet you really enjoyed undergrad!

------
pluc
You're not far from Wal-Mart University, and the entire idea of Idiocracy's
Costco University. Another step towards Greatness!

------
scrumption
How generous of the company that made $10b in net profit last year and
receives $6b+ of taxpayer funded subsidies every year to spend $400m to offer
their workers the unheard of ability to pursue 2 degrees from 3 colleges!

------
a-dub
Interesting. So the Starbucks program seems to pay for any undergraduate
degree at ASU. The Amazon program seems more focused on trades and vocational
training...

The Walmart program pays for an undergraduate business degree (kinda useless)
or a degree in supply chain management (likely to be useless in the coming
years).

Nice try.

------
Balgair
Wait, what am I missing here? Why do Walmart employees need a college degree
(outside of management-y positions)?

A cashier does not need a college degree, a person in that type of job should
be just fine without one (provided Walmart is paying enough)

~~~
lolsal
Read the article; this is the second sentence:

> The giant retailer said it would pay tuition for its workers to enroll in
> college courses, online or on campus, to earn degrees in either supply chain
> management or business.

~~~
Balgair
D'oh! Sorry about that!

