Should Your Business Start a Scholarship Program? 8 Points to Consider

Achieving a higher education opens doors for graduates. They gain networking opportunities as they learn and the knowledge to improve the world — including their employers. 

Companies starting scholarship programs could benefit in numerous ways, but is it the right move for your company?

These are a few things to consider before moving forward with the life-changing opportunity. Take notes and learn from other companies to determine what your program could look like.

1. What Do Your Employees Want to Do?

Scholarship programs only benefit those involved if employees want to utilize them. Poll your teams to find out what they’d do with college tuition money. You’ll design a program best suited for people in your industry and understand how to tailor the details for your first year’s program.

Even if your employees don’t have specific college dreams, additional career training will put your employees’ minds at ease. Recent research shows that 22% of working adults believe automation will replace their jobs. Your scholarship program could be their next step in career training, especially if they want to have numerous industries as potential employers.

Amazon’s scholarship program demonstrates meeting this need. The brand’s team members can utilize tuition reimbursement to pursue careers as nurses, mechanics, designers and more. Anyone worried about losing their job could gain an education in these high-demand fields to feel more confident.

2. Where Will You Get Your Funding?

No one can launch a scholarship program without funding. College costs thousands of dollars each semester, which adds up quickly for any business owner. Consider diverting money from your profits to gradually build your scholarship savings. Set a total savings goal for your scholarship to understand how much money you need and how much you’ll give away.

Businesses offer an array of financial opportunities through scholarship programs, so you can settle for whatever final offer is best for you. Best Buy provides a 10% tuition scholarship for online courses, while Chipotle grants $5,250 per year to employees pursuing a higher education. Both funding sources help those in need while remaining flexible for each enterprise.

3. Who Will Run the Program?

Any new program will require a dedicated administrative team. You’ll need to design the scholarship program, market it, answer questions about the process and sort through applications. Someone or a team of people will also need to narrow down the final candidates.

Deloitte offers a Graduate School Assistance Program for employees who have been with the firm for at least two years. Interested candidates must submit application materials and stand out from the highly motivated crowd. Deloitte couldn’t make it competitive or raise interest in the program without an administrative team selecting a handful of applicants yearly.

4. What Will Be the Prerequisites for Applicants?

You wouldn’t hire someone to fill an open position at your company without reviewing their detailed application. You need to know what qualifies them for the job. Scholarship opportunities require prerequisites as well.

These programs often require applicants to state what they’ll do with their scholarship money. They must know where they’ll go to college and which degree they’ll pursue or finish. You’ll know which applicants are more serious so your money doesn’t go to waste.

When the winners live out their academic dreams, they could change lives. For example, a winner of the Watermark Scholars Program enjoyed the financial backing to apply to more residencies with the ultimate goal of providing healthcare in her home state of Oklahoma. In a statement, she thanked the program for making that possible. 

Knowing what a candidate plans to do after graduation is foundational to making a choice, something to keep in mind when you’re organizing the details of your program. 

5. How Will You Narrow Down the Candidates?

Whether you’re narrowing down candidates with an administrative team or by yourself, you’ll need to know how to eliminate potential winners based on their applications. Will your program search for people from underserved communities or minority demographics? 

Do you want to choose a winner with the most detailed plan on how they’ll use the money? Consider these factors long before the day arrives to make your final decision easier.

Taco Bell’s Live Más Scholarship details how the company narrows down its candidates. Each applicant must submit a video of themselves describing how they’ll use the money. Specifically, the application board needs to know why each person needs higher education to pursue their passion and how that passion will change the world. Detailed answers indicate the people most likely to put the scholarship money to good use.

6. How Long Will Application Consideration Last?

Imagine a student applying to college. If they want to start in a fall semester, they need to apply during the fall semester of the previous school year. They’ll get a final answer by spring and attend orientation during the summer. The multiple weeks or months between steps give the administrative team time to sort through the thousands of applications.

How many people work for your company? If you only have five employees, your application consideration period may only require two or three weeks of your time. If you expect to have 10 or more applications, overestimate how much time you’ll need to give each applicant your full time and attention.

You could also time your final decision based on college application dates. Your winner could receive the money just before general fall or spring application deadlines arrive. Time the start of your program with free time in your schedule and the best timing for college applications to make your scholarship a bigger financial advantage.

7. How Will the Winner Be Announced?

Businesses, non-profits, schools and the U.S. Department of Education award over 1.7 million scholarships annually, which means your program has tons of competition. Your program’s launch and eventual winners will need loud announcements.

Plan various ways to make your program known before it starts. You’ll need to market it within your company through things like posters and emails. It’s also an important way to build your business’s reputation as a caring employer. Market your program outside of your business through social media posts and whatever marketing avenues you already utilize.

When you have a winner, you can use the same announcement processes to showcase the program’s success. Disney followed this model to announce its 14,000 winners of tuition funding in 2023. The company put out a press release detailing the number of winners and the amount of money it gave away. Anyone needing financial assistance to complete college could see the announcement and become more inclined to work for Disney based on the information.

8. How Will You Keep Up With the Winners?

You’ll gain new winners each year as your scholarship program ages. Advertise it with their success stories. Follow up with them after they receive the money and a year or more after their college journey begins. You can include their story in your marketing materials to draw future applicants and boost your business’s reputation. 

McDonald’s has its Archways to Opportunity program and regularly mentions past employee winners. The press announcements detailing how each worker used the money to change their lives give a long-term snapshot of what future winners could experience. McDonald’s followed up with Breanna Martin in the program’s Progress Report, detailing how she pursued a Liberal Arts degree and secured a promotion to People Department Manager.

The encouraging stories could be the motivation staff need to apply. It’s also positive press for any business offering scholarship programs to future employees.

Consider Supporting Your Employees With a Scholarship Program

Starting college courses or returning to finish a degree will change your employees’ lives. Your business will also get a better reputation than your competition if you support your team members’ educational dreams. Use these tips and inspirational details from other companies to start a scholarship program and change lives while benefiting your business.