Starbucks offers new perks to military veterans

In honor of Veterans' Day and in extending gratitude to military veterans Starbucks announced that it is offering free tuition to spouse or one child of an employee-veteran working at Starbucks.

Starbucks made the announcement last week that active duty service members, veterans, and military spouses are being honored with free coffee, Veterans Starbucks Card in Partnership with USO in stores across the nation including coffee donations to troops serving overseas.

This year's announcement was a further extension of Starbucks' efforts to give back to the community of military veterans and  200,000 of them according to JPMorganChase re-enter civilian lives on a yearly basis.

In 2013, Starbucks pledged to hire and train as many as 10,000 veterans to become part of the staff of Starbucks by 2018. To date, Starbucks has reached the halfway mark and has 5,500 veterans working for it.

Starbucks in its announcement referred to several key strategies to increase hiring of veterans across the nation and that included the hiring of four dedicated military recruiters in key focus cities like Seattle, DC and Austin and other measures to ensure the target of 10,000 is met by 2018.

In Starbucks' efforts to get the veterans to lead a civilian life, Starbucks has already in place scholarships offering free tuition for an online bachelor's degree via Arizona State University (ASU) available to any part- time or full-time veteran-employees.

The latest offering of free tuition to the veteran-employee's spouse or child is an arrangement Starbucks has struck with Arizona State University (ASU) whereby ASU will absorb 42% of the costs while Starbucks will pay for the remainder of 58% for selected online courses that can last up to four years.

InsideHigherEd Online News  reported that Arizona State and Starbucks "may also cooperate to develop coursework that is relevant to the needs of [Starbucks employees]," but those modules and courses will be available to any ASU Online student.

"We have a responsibility as a nation to honor our veterans' and their families for their service and sacrifice, but it goes beyond saying thank you- we must put out thanks into action and collectively help those who are making the transition from military to civilian life," said Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz.

He added, " Not only do we have a moral duty to engage veterans once they leave the service, we know that doing so in a meaningful way will ultimately strengthen our nation".