Corporations want to underwrite your college scholarships

The Future. Major brands are helping pay tuition to capture the attention of Gen Z. As more companies get in on the action to build a bond with potential customers, don’t be surprised if some brands create tuition-to-employment pipelines so they can track promising talent as early as possible… that is, if they want to go to a traditional college.

Education marketing
With the average yearly tuition around $36,000 per year, students are looking everywhere for financial aid.

Maybe they should check the S&P 500.

• Brands like Coca-Cola, Google, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and many others have launched scholarship funds that typically award recipients $5,000 to $10,000 annually.
• Burger King, which has had a program for decades, has given out 50,000 scholarships, mostly financed through coupon savings and “round-up” campaigns at cash registers.
• Even relatively smaller companies like Cards Against Humanity have jumped on the trend — its Science Ambassador Scholarship gives annual full-tuition scholarships to women and nonbinary students in STEM.

But education expenses don’t need to be reserved for the big players. Startup ScholarshipOwl, which connects students with brands’ scholarships, also helps small businesses launch their own programs (which are typically targeted at local institutions).

And with student debt levels hitting a Whopper™ $1.7 trillion, it’s nice to be served a little help wherever you can get it. (Take that one for free, Burger King.)