An Open Letter to Amazon Employees
Looking for a school in Amazon’s college tuition benefit program that will fit your busy lifestyle? Try online.
Dear Amazon Employees,
I’m so excited for you!
Recently, the City University of New York and Amazon announced that they would be partnering in an initiative to offer Amazon’s hourly employees tuition benefits so they can get their bachelor’s degree.
This is an amazing opportunity to further your education without going into debt and I, for one, can’t wait to see where this will take you!
I know that you have a lot of schools to choose from — CUNY’s eight schools are just a few of the 180 college and universities Amazon has partnered with nationwide — so I’d just like to remind you of one option that you may not have thought about: getting your degree online.
What’s the benefit of an online degree? You don’t have to be based in the same city or even state as the school. Tuition is often more affordable (so your annual tuition benefits may go even further.) And you often have a better experience in an online environment, since you can study and learn the coursework at your own pace.
But for many people, the best part of online education is the chance to take classes on your own time, which means you can fit them easily between your workday and the rest of your busy schedule.
My school, the CUNY School of Professional Studies, has been doing online education for more than 15 years. We started to offer our programs that way when we realized that online removes the major barriers that busy working adults often face when trying to complete their college degree.
It’s for that reason that I’d like to remind you to keep the online option in mind when you choose a school. CUNY SPS is one of several online providers in the Amazon partnership, so if you do go this route I encourage you to research which of these online programs might be the best fit for you.
Whatever you choose, I wish you great success!
Sincerely,
Jorge Silva-Puras
Interim Dean, CUNY School of Professional Studies
