Walmart and McDonald’s believe the work some of their employees do merits college credit — and they’ve managed to get a slew of colleges on board.
Workers at the two companies who pursue college degrees on the side can get credit for various work and on-the-job training programs, NPR reports. It’s part of corporate America’s efforts to attract, retain, and train employees. At Walmart, it’s also part of the company’s work to create a talent pipeline that it can promote from within.
Walmart employee Bonnie Boop returned to college in her 40s thanks to the company’s tuition assistance programs, NPR said. She was shocked to learn that the post-promotion training she received at “Walmart Academy” counted towards her online bachelor’s degree at Southern New Hampshire University.
When Boop’s advisor told her she had already taken a business operations class, she called saying, “But I didn’t.”
“And she said, ‘Yes, you got credit from Walmart Academy.’ And I said, what?” Boop said.
The programs at Walmart Academy counted for two college credits, which sped up Boop’s degree.
Walmart has more than a dozen short-form certificates and more than two dozen training courses for its employees that count towards college credit at partnering universities, it said.
McDonald’s has teamed up with multiple community colleges to help employees trained in customer service and food safety to convert their skills into credits for hospitality, insurance and culinary arts programs. Jiffy Lube has a similar program.
“For adults who feel like they weren’t college material, what we are able to do is say, ‘You are. And you’re doing college-level work already,’” Amber Garrison Duncan, who leads the nonprofit Competency-Based Education Network, told NPR. Duncan’s nonprofit connects schools with employers to encourage these partnerships.
Many of the programs are only in their infancy, and it can be difficult to get colleges on board.
“This definitely is a process that disrupts what traditional higher ed is used to, in terms of seat time — credit for sitting in a class and doing assignments,” Brianne McDonough, who works for the workforce development nonprofit Jobs for the Future, told NPR. “It’s a big change.”
Haley Glover, director of Aspen Institute’s UpSkill America initiative, said the programs require “an employer to be very rigorous about how they’re codifying and assessing, and that’s a capacity that a lot of employers don’t have.”
“It also requires institutions of learning to be very open and progressive,” she added.
