Denver Co. Partners With Walmart For Online College Degrees

DENVER, CO -- A Denver company, transplanted from Silicon Valley, is helping the U.S.'s biggest employer retain workers by offering access to online college courses. Walmart will partner with Denver-based Guild Education to help employees obtain a bachelor's degree in business or supply chain management for $1 a day, the company announced.

Guild Education, founded in 2015, has made a niche helping large service-industry employers retain their help by managing employee education programs with Chipotle Mexican Grill, Taco Bell and Lowe's. Sixty-four million working-age adults lack a college degree. The idea is to offer college education and/or tuition reimbursement as a perk to retain highly motivated workers.

Walmart employees can take their classes online at non-profit University of Florida, Brandman University and Bellevue University.

Rachel Carlson, CEO and co-founder of Guild Education, said the Walmart partnership had "low upfront costs," the Associated Press reported.

Guild Education was founded in 2015 at Stanford University, but soon left the Bay Area because of the high costs of living and moved to Denver. The company raised $21 million in a Series B round of venture funding last year.

Guild cites the statistic that 31 million working adults in the U.S. have tried to go back to school but dropped out, typically because of problems balancing a work and school schedule.

The company "measures how well students are doing in terms of course completion, with advisers nudging and cheering students if they're falling behind, or suggesting tweaks and techniques that can help them complete a desired course, degree or other credentials," CNBC reported last year.

Read more at the Washington Post.

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