Tuition Assistance

October 3, 2007 2:40 PM

What companies offer tuition assistance?

What national or Milwaukee area companies offer tuition reimbursement or assistance? The only ones I know that do are Blockbuster and the Home Depot. Is there a list online somewhere?

posted by apdato to work & money (18 comments total)

UW-Milwaukee offers its employees "career-related" tuition benefits (PDF). As to how that's defined would probably be down to you and your supervisor.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:49 PM on October 3, 2007

I live in a small town, and a lot of the local factories have amazing tuition benefits. Gates Rubber Company being the one that I am most familiar with. But, I don't know if this is a company wide policy, or just something that is local. I believe they pay for everything if you can commit to X number of years.
posted by peripatew at 3:07 PM on October 3, 2007

Most (all?) universities will.
posted by Stacey at 3:35 PM on October 3, 2007

Hmmm. Lots of companies will do this if it is related to your field. For example, I know a lot of community action agencies (think Head Start) will pay for you to get a teaching degree. Can you be more specific with what kind of schooling you would like?
posted by dpx.mfx at 4:32 PM on October 3, 2007

Kohl's does for hourly full-timers and executive managers, as long as your courses are related to your job or a similar job.
posted by Verdandi at 4:34 PM on October 3, 2007

UPS, and Starbucks are two more national suggestions.
posted by bunnycup at 4:39 PM on October 3, 2007

Best Buy offers tuition assistance.
posted by sociolibrarian at 4:53 PM on October 3, 2007

My 200-some smallish Washington company does, as did a 7,000-employee national Fortune 500 company I worked for, as does my dad's government job, my husband's nonprofit job and my brother's high-tech medium-sized business job. I think this is very widespread.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 6:38 PM on October 3, 2007

Wellpoint does. I've never worked for them, and have never known anyone who does, so I don't know how they run it.

Be cautious about taking a job to get the tuition reimbursement - in some companies it can be an illusion. It can be tied to courses or degrees related to your current position, can be required to be included in a departmental budget in advance, when budget deadlines and enrollment/payment deadlines don't line up, etc. I watched a couple of co-workers at a former job have some interesting dances with management/HR on this.
posted by dilettante at 6:50 PM on October 3, 2007

It is common, but I don't know of a list anywhere. If there is one, it would have to be published by a 3rd party of some kind (like a magazine who's listing good places to work, and reasons why they chose who they chose).

Robert W. Baird made Fortune's list, so I'd imagine they've got a good benefits package that might include tuition assistance. GE has stuff in MKE, and I'd wager they've got something. U.S. Cellular has a call center / sales office in MKE suburbs, and I think they have a program. I bet Miller does, although I get a weird "Old School" image when I think of a Miller Beer employee at college... Harley Davidson has it, so you can go to engineering school and design the next V-Rod.

Most bigger companies, and a heckuva lot of smaller ones these days seem to have some sort of tuition assistance.

So, I'm guessing from your post that you are:
1. Looking for a job
2. Hoping to continue your education

If those things are true, I'd recommend looking into companies that interest you, then checking their websites for info on their benefits. Businesses like to talk about that stuff, so it should be available on their websites. This approach probably won't take much more research than the other way around.
posted by altcountryman at 7:08 PM on October 3, 2007

I was thinking of a list like the one here-
http://www.monroecc.edu/depts/bursars/Reimbursement.htm
for Milwaukee but I can't find one.
posted by apdato at 8:36 PM on October 3, 2007

Do any companies offer this benefit at part-time?
posted by apdato at 8:37 PM on October 3, 2007

I know that GE offers tuition reimbursement. (GE Healthcare has several locations around Milwaukee, Waukesha, Brown Deer, etc.)

I don't know of a list of employers that offer tuition reimbursement, though.
posted by yellowbkpk at 9:26 PM on October 3, 2007

Hooters.


...Seriously.
posted by thebrokenmuse at 9:47 PM on October 3, 2007

UPS offers tuition benefits to part-time employees. It looks like they have some openings around the Milwaukee area.

I had a friend who worked at UPS for the tuition assistance. The money for school was helpful and he only had to work 20-25 hours a week, but the work was exhausting. Picking 20-30 50 lb boxes off a fast-moving conveyor every 60 seconds for a four-hour shift is quite a workout. I tried to get on at UPS but was never able to. I went in for the application process three or four times, but each time I never heard back from them. So I gave up.

I got a job at a University where they offer full-time employees a tuition waiver. Which is great. I work in the morning, walk over to my late morning classes and then work all afternoon and into the evening. However, be aware that when they offer a tuition waiver they are offering only a tuition waiver. I still had to pay all the assorted fees which universities are notorious for which amounted to about one third of the total cost of the classes (not including books). It's still a good deal, but it wasn't something that I was aware of beforehand. Also, the tuition waiver is only available for a limited number of credit hours. In my case I can take six hours of courses per semester.

If you're willing to go to school part-time working at university might be the way to go (assuming that they offer tuition waivers-not all schools do). Here's the info page for UWM, looks like they do some tuition assistance but that it's somewhat restricted. However, if you want to go to school full-time you'll need to find a place that offers benefits to part-time employees (unless you're one of those people who doesn't have to sleep or you can get a full-time job in addition to school like one of those John Grisham characters where they spend their nights doing homework at the convenience store). UPS is the only place I know of that offers tuition assistance to part-time employees, but maybe someone will chime in with some other suggestions. Good luck in your search.
posted by meditative_zebra at 11:27 PM on October 3, 2007

State Farm.
posted by tr33hggr at 5:58 AM on October 4, 2007

Bank of America offers some very nice benefits, but I don't think they are in Wisconsin. Northern Illinois close enough for you?
posted by Rock Steady at 6:29 AM on October 4, 2007

Wisconsin National Guard.
posted by SenshiNeko at 7:41 PM on October 4, 2007