Macy’s ends program that offered tuition-free college degrees to employees
Macy’s is ending a program that provided college degree programs and other educational courses to its employees at no cost, the company has confirmed to Modern Retail.
The program was a partnership with Guild, a company that has similar initiatives with Walmart, Chipotle and PepsiCo, among others. It gave full-time and part-time employees free access to degree and certificate programs in areas such as business, supply chain, tech and data analytics, as well as language learning, college-prep and high school completion programs. Macy’s would cover 100% of the tuition.
The program’s website, still active despite the discontinuation, says it provides 100-plus programs from more than 20 schools, colleges and universities, including LSU Online, eCornell, Southern New Hampshire University, Penn Foster High School and Wilmington University. Macy’s would also reimburse expenses such as textbooks and course fees for programs within the Guild catalog.
A Guild spokesperson said the company is disappointed in the retailer’s decision and plans to offer financial assistance to Macy’s employees near program completion to ensure they can finish their education.
“We are proud of the impact we drove over the course of our partnership, including a reduction in employee turnover, an increase in career mobility and strong employee engagement amongst Macy’s employees who participated,” Guild said in a statement.
The language and college-prep programs are now unavailable, and the certificate and degree programs will end at the end of the current semester, according to Macy’s. The retailer found the program didn’t largely have an impact on retention or internal promotions, and a small proportion of employees used it. In 2023, Macy’s reported that more than 3,000 employees completed at least one course with the program since it began in February 2022.
To substitute portions of the now-discontinued Guild program, the company inked a partnership with language learning service Duolingo this month and expanded access to LinkedIn Learning courses — previously unavailable to its frontline retail workers — to all employees. It also has had a limited tuition reimbursement benefit for office workers.
Macy’s announced the partnership with Guild, then called Guild Education, in 2021 alongside news that it would raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour. At the time, the company said it would invest $35 million in the Guild program over the next four years. “This program removes a major barrier to accessing education and will help our colleagues to further develop their skills and grow their careers and earning potential,” Danielle Kirgan, chief transformation and human resources officer at Macy’s, said at the time.
Both the education benefit and the wage increase were efforts to attract and retain talent. In 2021 and 2022, employer partnerships with educators spiked for both corporate and frontline workers, Modern Retail’s sibling publication WorkLife reported. This was in response to the pandemic-induced labor market where employees were switching jobs at record numbers and employers sought to position themselves as attractive places to work.
Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData’s retail division, said retailers are no longer in the same position, noting that with inflation, many people have had to take on second jobs and take up more part-time work.
“Retailers still have to work hard with retention and they still have to work hard with recruitment, but they don’t have to dangle lots of things in front of employees as they did maybe five years ago, four years ago,” Saunders said. “We’re just not in that type of market anymore.”
Through a new strategy announced in February 2024, Macy’s has been working to streamline its business, refreshing its assortment, improving the customer experience, closing 150 unproductive locations and investing in 350 new stores, including small-format locations.
“We’re still seeing some retailers like Walmart and others invest in various things for employees; I think Macy’s is kind of a bit different, though,” Saunders said. “They’re closing these stores, they’re closing some distribution centers that aren’t working for them, so they’re just not in recruitment and retention mode.”