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Comment by lsc | Hacker News Reader

from the article:

"Full- and part-time Walmart workers can use the subsidy to take courses at the University of Florida; Brandman University in Irvine, Calif.; and Bellevue University in Bellevue, Neb."

I don't know what those schools cost, but these don't appear to be nationally or even regionally ranked universities... meaning you are probably better off going to a community college and then a state college - both of which are "the expensive part is your time" even when your time can be bought for walmart floor wages.

Walmart, I think, would probably be doing better by their employees if they offered a more traditional tuition reimbursement plan, or setup deals with more local community colleges.

(that's also not a lot of schools... I'm wondering if this is for an online or mostly online program?)

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For what it's worth, the University of Florida is ranked #42 in US News's report (https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-florida-1...). I'd probably consider it the top public Floridia university.

Brandman appears to be linked with Chapman University and is focused on adult education. Bellevue University appears to be independent of any university and is also focused on adult education.

So my guess is UF was chosen in part because it has a long running "distance and continuing education" department?

Interesting. I Looked up the other two schools, but not the University of Florida, which was unfair of me, as I am personally a little suspicious of the unranked private schools

> Walmart, I think, would probably be doing better by their employees if they offered a more traditional tuition reimbursement plan

By cutting deals with a few institutions and offering mostly online programming, Walmart can keep prices way down. I suspect they do it this way because the equivalent value of the tuition reimbursement would be way too low for any of their low-level employees to actually afford the education.

in California, community college tuition is on the order of a grand a year, full time (in state) - less if you are only going part time, which you probably would be, if you're working enough hours to get the walmart reimbursement.

At those rates, the expensive part is the time off work, even when you are only making $11/hr. (I mean, employer reimbursement is still a nice gesture, every little bit counts.)

I find it... unlikely that the private universities are cheaper than the community colleges.

Now, your last two years, at a state school, in California are closer to six or seven grand a year, full time, so half that for your half-time plan, and that's a much bigger bite, but I still kinda wonder what kind of private school could do cheaper, though we're getting more realistic.

In California, at least, if you go to any of our very good public schools, you will almost certainly be paying more just to keep yourself alive than you will be paying in tuition

(which isn't to say I don't think we should subsidize them more; I'm just saying that most of the cost of going to california public schools is... living in California.)

But this is for college tuition, not community college tuition, and California is very much the outlier. Also, this focuses on particular areas of need for Walmart:

> Walmart will pay only for degrees in business and supply-chain management because those areas of study “will be relevant across the industry and for future work opportunities,” according to spokeswoman Erica Jones.

They also cover books and supplies, which I imagine would be way more expensive without a single standardized curriculum across all of their employees.

I think community college in California is the best chance working adults have of getting into prestigious schools. My understanding is that you have a significantly better chance of getting into an undergrad program at Berkeley from community college than even the better California state colleges.

Really, the options for working adults are mostly geared towards the remedial. Community college is one of the few options available to someone like me to get back on the prestigious school track.

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