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The issue is that it was initially presented as an "up front" scholarship, but it is in fact a reimbursement. The difference is significant. Even the quote from

The issue is that it was initially presented as an "up front" scholarship, but it is in fact a reimbursement. The difference is significant. Even the quote from your preferred article mentions that "up-front costs could be problematic for some students". If you get a $10,000 scholarship, enroll, then decide somewhere along the line that your workload is too much and you have to withdraw, you aren't out $10,000. With this program, if you don't hit the 21 credit mark, you are screwed. No one is arguing that Starbucks isn't paying for school. The argument is that they were misleading about how they are paying for it.

Dylan16807 12y ago
Discouraging withdrawal could be argued to be the point, and the amount of courses you would withdraw from at once should be much less than 21 credits. Assuming you still get 21 hours of money if you complete 21 out of 29 credit hours, I don't see it as a major problem. And this is for the Junior and Senior classes. You should already know what workload you can handle by then.
- dbbolton 12y ago
  They explicitly said it was to "motivate" students to finish, but I see that as kind of a cop out answer since it's also extremely convenient for them. As for withdrawal, yes, you should know what you can handle by junior year, but that was just one for-instance. People withdraw for all sorts of reasons (e.g. medical). I can't imagine being too sick to focus on your schoolwork and then having your "scholarship" yanked away from you because of it. Is it better than nothing? Yes. Is it as nice as they made it out to be? No. That's the point here.
pdabbadabba 12y ago
Maybe this is AN issue, but this is certainly not the issue highlighted by the komonews.com article. The point of the article is > It turns out Starbucks isn't contributing any upfront scholarship money to an online college degree program it introduced this week. This is technically true, but readily misleads the reader into thinking that Starbucks is not contributing any money at all. (If you disagree, I suggest scrolling down a bit in this thread to see the reactions of your fellow HNers.) In fact, Starbucks will reimburse workers for the cost of their second two years of college--ASU and the federal government (essentially) will pay for the first two. The article does also mention this, but buries it more than halfway down.

Dylan16807 12y ago

Discouraging withdrawal could be argued to be the point, and the amount of courses you would withdraw from at once should be much less than 21 credits. Assuming you still get 21 hours of money if you complete 21 out of 29 credit hours, I don't see it as a major problem. And this is for the Junior and Senior classes. You should already know what workload you can handle by then.

dbbolton 12y ago
They explicitly said it was to "motivate" students to finish, but I see that as kind of a cop out answer since it's also extremely convenient for them. As for withdrawal, yes, you should know what you can handle by junior year, but that was just one for-instance. People withdraw for all sorts of reasons (e.g. medical). I can't imagine being too sick to focus on your schoolwork and then having your "scholarship" yanked away from you because of it. Is it better than nothing? Yes. Is it as nice as they made it out to be? No. That's the point here.

pdabbadabba 12y ago

Maybe this is AN issue, but this is certainly not the issue highlighted by the komonews.com article. The point of the article is > It turns out Starbucks isn't contributing any upfront scholarship money to an online college degree program it introduced this week. This is technically true, but readily misleads the reader into thinking that Starbucks is not contributing any money at all. (If you disagree, I suggest scrolling down a bit in this thread to see the reactions of your fellow HNers.) In fact, Starbucks will reimburse workers for the cost of their second two years of college--ASU and the federal government (essentially) will pay for the first two. The article does also mention this, but buries it more than halfway down.