I Work at Starbucks and Got a Free College Degree Through the Company

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Megan Allison, a 23-year-old Starbucks store manager in Philadelphia.

Allison graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree from Arizona State University. She got the degree through the Starbucks College Achievement Plan (SCAP), which covers tuition toward a Bachelor’s degree in ASU’s online program.

About 13% of Starbucks employees, whom Starbucks calls “partners,” are currently participating in the program, according to the company.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When I started working at Starbucks, I was 18 years old. I had aged out of foster care, and I really didn’t have parents around. I was kind of making it for myself.

I was DoorDash-ing and working as a housekeeper at the time. I really didn’t have plans. My mom always wanted to encourage me to go to school. But I was feeling very lost.

I got a job at a Starbucks near me in Virginia. Immediately, I felt at home there in a way that I hadn’t felt anywhere else before. I worked there for about six months, then I transferred to a Starbucks Reserve location in Baltimore.

I was working on my associate degree when my store manager told me about SCAP. I said, “That’s in my future, but I’m not there yet.”

When I graduated from community college in the spring of 2022, I immediately knew that I wanted to continue my education. I enrolled at Arizona State in the fall through SCAP.

Now, retrospectively, I can see that I had a lot of opportunities, but at the time, I had no financial resources, no connections. So, for me, it was SCAP or nothing. It gave me a next step, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be, or what I wanted to study.

I went into my college degree studying communications, but I switched to psychology. My classes — learning about what motivates people and what drives people to succeed — really helped me understand my partners at Starbucks and how to be a better leader.

Also, meeting different people through my classes and reading all sorts of literature by people of different backgrounds gave me more perspective.

Having a degree gave me the confidence to pursue more opportunities

As a barista, I took a full course load while getting my bachelor’s degree. Then, I became a shift supervisor, so I had to slow down my coursework a bit. I usually worked from noon until 8:30 p.m. I would get home at 9 o’clock and do homework until 1 in the morning.

I was promoted to assistant store manager in 2023. A few months later, I became a store manager at a Starbucks in Philadelphia.

It was hard to work and study, but I kept going with it.

This spring, I got to fly to Arizona and graduate. I’m still a store manager with Starbucks. My goal was always to get my degree and then move on. Starbucks didn’t feel like a big-girl job for me. But the longer that I’ve been here, the more I see a community and a culture that I want to be a part of.

Eventually, I would like to work in career development and talent acquisition. I would love to work at Starbucks in that field. I just found out about the Starbucks fellowship program, where you can get an internship on the corporate side, so I might do that.

Earlier in my time at Starbucks, store leaders would ask me, “Have you ever considered being a store manager? Have you ever considered being a store manager trainer?” Having a degree gave me the confidence to pursue more opportunities.

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