[[photo id="93461" crop="landscape_850x566" align="center” size="full-width” class=""]]
Cleary University has seen its enrollment shrink by more than 20 percent over the past decade, so the small, private university in Michigan has decided to take a page from much larger institutions: It has set up a partnership with a nearby company to offer employees free tuition.
Home to only 652 students in total this year, Cleary hopes eventually to double its enrollment by teaming up with TEAM Schostak, a restaurant-holding company whose headquarters are a 45-minute drive away. Cleary offers free online tuition to any TEAM Schostak employee or family member of any employee nationwide, and TEAM Schostak pays Cleary by the seat for a minimum of 500 spots, at a rate of $100 to $300, depending on how many spots are bought.
While other institutions around the country have formed similar partnerships in recent years, Cleary’s small size makes this one unusual. Some universities engaged in this work have online and in-person enrollments that total in the hundreds of thousands, not a few hundred. Arizona State University teamed up with Starbucks and Uber to offer those companies’ employees discounted tuition, while Southern New Hampshire University, Western Governors University, Purdue University Global, and the University of Maryland Global Campus have openly courted companies with their expanding online opportunities.
In order to enroll in the Cleary program, employees must have worked at TEAM Schostak for at least six months and be in good standing with the company. They must also meet Cleary’s standards for admission, one of which is to submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the Fafsa. Cleary plans to provide scholarships for the remainder of the $19,300 yearly tuition that’s not covered by federal aid.
At first, the fees paid by the company and the amount of money students receive in Pell Grants won’t cover the full cost of tuition, but Jayson Boyers, Cleary’s president, believes “the lifetime value of that student is more than just the tuition.” Boyers said he expects the program’s cost to be offset by the marketing value it provides, as Cleary increases its name recognition across the country. “We’re playing the long game,” he said.
While the program hasn’t had its full rollout yet, around 20 employees have already enrolled in Cleary’s online classes, and 60 or so are in the process of signing up, said Christian Camp, who leads TEAM Schostak’s human-resources department and whose title is vice president of awesome people. Cleary, which describes itself as a “specialized business university,” offers a hospitality program, so it made sense for the college to team up with a restaurant-holding group, but TEAM Schostak employees can choose any degree program there.
Boyers expects 500 to 700 employees to enroll in the program once the full marketing campaign starts, potentially doubling Cleary’s enrollment. And he plans to announce similar partnerships with other companies before the end of the year.
To Boyers, it’s a clear win-win. Cleary adds to its enrollment while the corporation offers an additional benefit to its work force to help with recruitment and retention. And Camp notes that the employees probably get the best end of the deal because they will be able to graduate debt-free.
Boyers knows the challenges Cleary faces: It’s small, so it’s overshadowed by other institutions in the region, like the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. But he also recognizes that with the internet, an institution’s physical resources aren’t as important. Cleary’s corporate partnerships represent a gamble on expanding online-education opportunities for survival, but if it works, Boyers believes it might provide a road map for other small, resource-limited universities.
“A couple years ago, the nontraditional student became the larger population,” Boyers said. “So online education can’t be just another offering: It has to be a scalable model.”
And Boyers doesn’t intend for Cleary’s relationships to stay entirely local either. The internet allows for a student anywhere in the world to take classes at Cleary, so corporations in any industry the university’s programs cover can find value in a relationship, he said.
“It is about finding your people, finding the people who naturally will be best served by you,” Boyers said. “I don’t want to see one private college close their doors because I know they’re there for a purpose. It’s going to require programs like this. Programs where you think outside the box.”
Wesley Jenkins is an editorial intern at The Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter @_wesjenks, or email him at wjenkins@chronicle.com.