Eastern Michigan University recently announced their acceptance in Career Choice, a part of Amazon’s pledge which includes a $1.2 billion commitment to upskill more than 300,000 Amazon employees by 2025.
Amazon’s career choice mission is to provide their employees a chance to pursue a college degree or certificate that will be paid for by the company. This upskilling program was created to help frontline employees grow their skills for career success at Amazon or elsewhere. Amazon would be paying for first-time degrees or if employees have partial credits with no degree. This program is available for all Amazon employees.
Melissa Thrasher, director of Media Relations at Eastern Michigan University, speaks on behalf of the university and its acceptance into this program.
“Eastern Michigan University is proud to have been selected by Amazon to be one of two universities in Michigan and two community colleges to participate in the program. The others are Grand Valley, Henry Ford College, and Grand Rapids Community College,” Thrasher said.
Amazon has more than 26,000 employees in Michigan that can benefit from this program. With more than 700,000 across the nation, these benefits become available after 90 days of employment.
The company will be paying up to $5,250 in college-related costs annually for employees.
“Even though the program was just announced, we already have seven Amazon employees enrolled,“ Thrasher said. “Some of them are taking pretty heavy course loads–one employee has 20 credits and two others are taking 15 credits.”
Amazon also has other programs to help their employees gain other skills as well. The company recently partnered with Voxy EnGen and goFLUENT to provide English proficiency training. They partnered with Outlier to provide college preparation courses too, as well as GEDWorks and Smart Horizons to provide employees with free high school completion and GED preparation.
EMU students and Amazon employees interested in the program can learn more about Career Choice on Amazon’s webpage.
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