Hazlet McDonald's Pays For Employee To Get Her College Degree

HAZLET, NJ — If you stop at the Hazlet McDonald's, you might recognize this familiar face behind the counter: Kismet Tongur, 29, has been employed at the Rt. 35 McDonald's for the past five years and worked her way up to first assistant manager.

But what you may not know is the McDonald's corporation and Hazlet franchise owner Alana Marinello paid entirely for Tongur to go to college. She just finished her online classes on June 20 and now has her bachelor's degree in human resources administration from Colorado Technical University.

"I did it in nine semesters, about two years," Tongur told Patch. She is a mother of three children, ages 11, 9 and 7, and she lives in nearby Sayreville. "I would do classes before work and after work. I get two days off a week, so on those days, as soon as I got the kids on the bus, I'd do school work until 3 p.m., when they got home again."

"There were some nights when I didn't sleep at all," she continued. "I'd finish my shift at McDonald's at midnight, get home at 12:30 a.m. and then do homework until 5 a.m. Sleep a little and then be back at McDonald's at 10 a.m. the next day. Yup .... there weren't many, but there were a few days like that."

Tongur is one of thousands of McDonald's employees across the country who are taking advantage of a unique offering by the fast food chain: Through McDonald's Archways to Opportunity program, employees apply to a college of their choice; McDonald's then pays for their tuition, depending on the employee's need. Some employees are only given a few thousand dollars, others are reimbursed up to 60 percent of the tuition costs and some, like Tongur, have their college tuition entirely paid for. McDonald's also pays for its employees to take classes to learn English as a second language.

"Kismet didn't have to pay anything. In total it was about $56,000," said Marinello, the Hazlet McDonald's franchise owner. "We're really proud of her. She has three children at home, she has a full-time job. And now she has a college degree, debt-free."

Not for nothing, but she also got a free laptop in the deal.

Tongur gradated from War Memorial High School in Sayreville in 2008. She started working at the McDonald's in Old Bridge when she was 15, and kept the part-time job all throughout high school and into her 20s. After she finished high school, she enrolled in a few classes at Middlesex County Community College but, — as it does for so many — life got in the way.

"I got promoted to manager at McDonald's, and I was making pretty good money for not having a college degree. The years just went by fast; before I knew it, I was 27 and I was like, I need to go back to school," said the young woman. "One day I saw an ad posted in the crew room that McDonald's would offer tuition reimbursement and I was like, 'I need to take advantage of this."

In 2008, McDonald's made headlines when the company announced it would be tripling the number of employees eligible for tuition assistance, and the amount they will be giving away. McDonald's also lowered the eligibility for employees who can apply: All they have to do is work for the company for at least 90 days and work at least 15 hours a week. Since Archways to Opportunity launched in 2015, McDonald's has paid the college tuition for more than 16,400 employees nationwide.

Many corporations with more than 100 employees offer tuition reimbursement. Taco Bell and Chipotle are two fast-food chains that also pay for employees to get their college degree.

Marinello owns six McDonald's franchises in Monmouth County (the Hazlet location; on Rt. 34 in Aberdeen; on Rt. 9 in Old Bridge; on Rt. 36 in Union Beach and Leonardo and on Rt. 9 in Marlboro) and at the moment, she has 32 current employees who are taking advantage of the Archways to Opportunity program.

"Many of them are using the tuition assistance to go to Rutgers and Brookdale Community College," said Marinello, who lives in Tinton Falls. "One employee is taking classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. But Kismet is our first one to actually graduate."

After Tongur saw that sign, she applied to Colorado Technical University (CTU), which is a partner school with Archway to Opportunity. That meant they accepted as college credit some of the manager courses she had taken at McDonald's. DePaul and University of Phoenix are other partner schools. There were 80 different online degrees CTU offered, but Tongur decided on human resources.

"She talked to me about what she wanted to study," Marinello said. "As assistant manager, she does the hiring, the training and the employee schedule, so she was already well-versed in labor laws and already had quite a bit of an overview in human resources."

Once an employee obtains their degree there are no stipulations, either, according to the company: Tongur is free to leave McDonald's and find any other employment she wishes.

"She could leave tomorrow if she wants," said Marinello. "Far be it for me to stand in the way. She will be missed. She's obviously a very good employee."

Even though she could leave, at the moment Tongur plans to stay at the Hazlet McDonald's. Ideally, she'd like to move up in the fast food corporation, she said.

"Right now, because of the way the company benefited me and allowed me to go to school, I want to take the knowledge I learned and apply it right here," she told Patch. "It would have taken me half my life to pay off $56,000 in student loans. Most of the people I know are still paying off student loans from years ago. I'm grateful I don't have that responsibility."