Starbucks offers 100 percent tuition coverage for its employees through innovative partnership with Arizona State University
Rosny Hang marvels at how far she’s come. She remembers a time when she had trouble just printing files and adjusting the brightness on her computer screen. This spring, when she graduates with a Bachelor of Science degree with a double major in geographic information science and geography, she’ll be well-versed in programming languages like Python and RStudio.
“I am someone who was considered technologically challenged,” says Hang, 33, a Starbucks shift supervisor in Diamond Bar, California. “Going from that to be able to read code and program, and make maps out of the coding I’m doing, that’s crazy for me, a huge milestone.
“That’s the biggest lesson I took away from all this, that I was more capable than I thought.”
This May, Starbucks is proud to celebrate partners (employees) like Hang, who’ve shown so much dedication and perseverance to become part of the largest-ever graduating class through the Starbucks College Achievement Plan(SCAP), more than 700 scholars strong. Starbucks offers 100 percent tuition coverage for benefits-eligible partners through Arizona State University’s online degree programs.
Since the program’s inception in 2014, more than 6,500 partners have earned first-time bachelor’s degrees.
That Hang has made it this far is a testament to her family, she says, especially her parents, who met and married at a refugee camp in Thailand after escaping the genocide in Cambodia that killed an estimated two million people in the 1970s. Hang’s oldest sister, now an accountant, was born at the camp. They moved into a rough neighborhood in Long Beach, California, where many people – their family included – struggled amidst violence, gangs and poverty.
Hang spent her 20s in and out of school, not sure what she wanted and “not fully focused.” In 2015, she learned about SCAP while working at a bookstore; she was organizing loose magazines when she noticed and read an article about the program.
It felt like a sign, Hang remembers. She wanted more education but was concerned about the cost. She knew she could do more but didn’t have a clear path. SCAP became an answer, and within weeks, she’d quit the bookstore and begun working at the Starbucks next door.
“Starbucks gave me a second chance to try and get to my goals,” Hang says. “I’m realizing my own journey in education is at my pace, not at somebody else’s.”
A friend who worked as a shift supervisor, finishing her own SCAP journey, modeled a positive work ethic and dedication to learning. Hang began attending local STEM conferences with her younger brother, who earned a mechanical engineering degree and is now working in the aerospace industry. She connected with professionals and other students and discovered jobs and opportunities she’d never even known existed.
Now, Hang hopes to use her degree to land a job as a data analyst at Starbucks, though there’s no requirement for SCAP graduates to remain with the company. She can also see herself doing research, education or environmental stewardship with the National Park Service or an organization like the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. She loves the outdoors and goes camping and backpacking as often as she can.
For graduation, which will be held virtually due to COVID-19, she’s purchased a traditional Cambodian dress, which she’ll wear under her cap and gown. It’s both a reminder of her heritage and a sign of respect for her parents’ journey and sacrifice.
“It’s been a long road for all of us,” Hang says. “This is what my parents worked for. They put that struggle in to see us graduate and to provide for ourselves. Now we can take care of them, and we can take care of each other as a family. That was one of my motivations to keep going, to wear my cap and gown for my parents.”
‘I know I can change people’s lives through our mission and values’
Jessie Torres Barragan remembers the day the world opened up to him.
He was a Starbucks store manager in 2018 when he attended an event fair for partners to learn about SCAP. There, other store managers, including some with busy drive-thru stores and some with families, shared their stories of earning their degree online through Arizona State University. All were on the cusp of graduating.
“I thought, well, if they can, so can I,” he remembers.
Torres Barragan, now a Starbucks district manager in Charlotte, North Carolina, had never thought college would be for him. Neither of his parents attended school past eighth grade. When he was growing up, money was scarce. For more than a decade, the family of seven lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the Los Angeles area; his parents slept in the living room and all the kids, in the bedroom.
School was a struggle, and he says he might not have graduated from high school if it hadn’t been for two teachers who went out of their way to make sure he did. As far as college? “I didn’t think college would be something that was for me. We knew it was expensive and we couldn’t afford it.”
Still, he tried. Over the next few years, he enrolled in three different colleges, but had to drop out each time because there wasn’t money to pay for it. Instead, he focused on restaurant work, eventually getting hired as a barista at Starbucks in 2014 and working his way up.
Serving his community – not just his customers but all who live in the area – has always been a priority.
“Community is everything,” says Torres Barragan, 31. “My parents had to depend on community. We wouldn’t have had food on the table.”
After he enrolled in SCAP he saw the program as not just a path for him, but for others who had struggled as he had. “Growing up poor, with the mindset of people telling me ‘You’re never going to amount to anything, you’re Latino, you’re Mexican, you are gay.’ … I just thought there must be a child who is going through something similar,” he says.
He started visiting nearby high schools, encouraging seniors to apply when positions were open and talking to them about how Starbucks was not just a paycheck, but a way to a better life. At one point, more high school students worked at his store than any other in his district, having come because of the possibility of SCAP.
Last year, Torres Barragan was well on his way to earning his degree when COVID-19 changed everything. At the time, he was managing a busy store in Virginia, one of the only ones still open because it had a drive thru. The line of cars backed up for miles. His work weeks were long, and he had classes and homework on top of that. Exhausted, he considered pausing his schooling. “But it was truly something where I knew I just had to complete it. My mind was like, I cannot give up.”
After he graduates, he plans to use his degree in organizational leadership right where he earned it – at Starbucks. Two months ago, he was promoted to district manager and moved to North Carolina where he leads partners at 11 stores.
“I always wondered what my legacy would be, and now I know I can change people’s lives through our mission and values and share the opportunity as it was done for me,” he says. “My future is endless now.”
‘This is just going to refuel me’
Long before the pandemic struck, Wilmarah Quezada thought she wanted to work as an accountant, or maybe in human resources. It fit with her worldview at the time; she sought financial security and stability.
But the last year has caused a lot of people to rethink their values, including Quezada, who plans to pursue a career in the medical field after graduating from SCAP this spring. Though her degree is in organizational leadership, she’s spent the last year taking as many pre-requisites as possible to apply for graduate school to become a physician assistant.
“I wanted to go a different route, I wanted to work in medicine and I wanted to help people more directly,” says Quezada, 25, a Starbucks barista in Bethesda, Maryland. “I want to work in underserved communities where there aren’t many Spanish-speaking health providers.”
As much of society shut down during COVID-19, she was struck by how those in the medical field – including one friend who is an anesthesiologist and another who’s a registered nurse – were still showing up on the front lines. “They were literally putting their life on the line,” she says. “Seeing how people were dying, it made me want to help.”
She’s already certified as an emergency medical technician and hopes to spend the next year gaining as much experience as possible – either in volunteer roles or through a hospital.
Born in Puerto Rico, Quezada is the oldest of three sisters who moved to Massachusetts with her parents when she was 6 years old, in search of better opportunities and eager to leave behind a bad neighborhood. But after a young man who lived across the street was shot, in their new community, they moved again, to rural Pennsylvania.
She tried community college and found lots of work opportunities, but nothing stuck. She was “terrified of student loans” and reluctant to transfer to a bigger university. About four years ago, she discovered SCAP and enrolled at ASU.
A transformational moment – the initial seeds for her pivot – came when she visited Colombia with an international business class she was taking at ASU, several months before the outbreak had spread worldwide. Though the experience was designed as an opportunity to talk business with representatives from government agencies and local companies, Quezada was more struck by the warmth and compassion of the people she encountered in informal spaces – a taxi driver who explained how Colombia was affected by the Venezuelan refugee crisis, and a woman who did her hair at a mall who “made me feel like her granddaughter.”
Being in Colombia reminded her “that people matter,” she says. “My views started to shift, where it was more about helping people and having an impact on society.”
She’s eager for that lesson to continue.
“Graduation is definitely going to be great, but it’s not something that I’m done with yet,” she says. “This is just going to refuel me and motivate me to keep going and work even harder.”