[caption id=”attachment_126555″ align=”aligncenter” width=”4665″] (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
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Starbucks has been much lauded this year for its new program that allows employees to get up to four years of tuition covered for an online college degree from Arizona State University.
The Atlantic took a close look at the new program for its May issue and reporter Amanda Ripley told HuffPost Live that it actually took baristas a while to buy into the program because they thought it was too good to be true.
“One of the biggest challenges that the company had was convincing their employees that this was real, that there was no sort of secret clause that would make them have to work at Starbucks forever, or put them in a huge amount of debt,” Ripley said.
She said that a lot of this stems from the “general cynicism” and “distrust” that people feel towards large corporations and higher education overall.
“Colleges and corporations have done themselves no favors in how they treat their employees and how they treat their students, and so I think that’s a real problem,” Ripley said.
“Starbucks had to do a lot of work with Arizona State to try to build trust and build credibility and convince people that, ‘Hey, this is real! We are serious. We really want you to succeed.’ It took more effort and time than they expected.”
Watch the HuffPost Live clip below:
