Amanda Dasher’s father is one of 10 siblings. None of them have a bachelor’s degree from a four-year college or university. Her mother is one of five siblings. None of them have one either.

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When Amanda graduates in May with a degree in organizational leadership from Arizona State University – as part of the latest cohort of graduates with the Starbucks College Achievement Plan (SCAP) – it won’t be just her celebrating, it’ll be her entire extended family.

“They’re all cheering me on,” Amanda says. “My degree means the world to me and will be one of the biggest accomplishments I have ever received.”

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Amanda grew up in Santa Fe, N.M. Her father was in the Navy. While she was a strong student, she never felt any expectation to attend a four-year school after graduating high school. She didn’t receive much guidance either, in terms of taking standardized tests or filling out college applications and financial-aid forms.

She worked at a restaurant in New Mexico and took classes on-again off-again at a local community college, taking about 10 years to get an associate degree in business.

In 2014, Starbucks first introduced SCAP – which covers 100 percent tuition toward a first-time bachelor’s degree through ASU’s online program. Amanda jumped on the offer soon after. Of the approximately 14,000 U.S. Starbucks partners taking advantage of the SCAP benefit, more than 20 percent, like Amanda, are first-generation college attendees.

She ran into a big roadblock that first year, though. She had just been promoted to store manager in Albuquerque, N.M., and had difficulty juggling classes with running her store full time. She ended up failing three classes and faced academic probation.&nbsp;

“I never expected that to happen,” Amanda says. “I didn’t think I’d be finishing. This was not a proud moment for me, and I knew I had to turn it around.”

But then she found out that she was pregnant with a boy. In 2017, when Mason was born, Amanda had a new motivation: making sure that her son would be proud of his mother, and making sure that he’d grow up with two parents who had college degrees. Her husband, Brandon, also a Starbucks partner, also took advantage of the SCAP benefit and received his degree in 2017. He now works at the Starbucks Support Center (SSC) in Seattle at the Partner Contact Center while she manages a store in Snoqualmie, Wash.

Amanda, 32, hopes to use her degree and continue advancing within Starbucks, maybe applying for a store support role at the SSC, or trying to become a district manager.

She’s also been an evangelist for the SCAP benefit in her stores, talking it up to partners, especially the ones who might need financial help to go to school. She’ll celebrate with one of her shift supervisors, who’s also graduating this May, and three other partners she’s close with are also taking advantage of SCAP.

Amanda was planning to go back to Santa Fe to celebrate with her extended family, but COVID-19 lockdown measures have squelched those plans. She hopes to visit her family when travel restrictions loosen. Her relatives are ready to see her.

“Inside I knew she had it in her, she is a strong individual like that,” says Amanda’s aunt and godmother, Brenda Montoya, of Santa Fe. “The way Amanda was, she just wanted to do it on her own. She just kept at it. It takes a lot of self-discipline.” &nbsp;

Amanda’s honor cords – a recognition of her high GPA – came in the mail recently. Thinking back to the classes she failed when she first started at ASU, she can’t help but be amazed.

“Sometimes, I want to not feel proud of it because it took me so long to get here,” she says. “But it feels great knowing I got it done and I didn’t quit when it got rough.”

‘They are all cheering me on’: Amanda Dasher is first in her family to earn college degree - Starbucks Stories

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‘They are all cheering me on’: Amanda Dasher is first in her family to earn college degree

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About once a week during the summers, when she was a kid growing up in Appleton, Wisc., Sarah Barr’s dad would take her and her two brothers out to the farm fields next to their house. They’d go looking for Native American arrowheads.

They’d stop at the gas station first and load up on snacks – hot dogs and chocolate milk. Then the three kids would follow dad around, spending the day walking the rows of corn, peering hard into the dirt.

“I loved to find the arrowheads in his footprints,” Sarah recalls. “The ones he had missed and stepped right over, I would pick up and make fun of him for not seeing them the first time.”

When Sarah graduates in May with a Bachelor of Science degree in Sustainability from Arizona State University – part of the latest cohort to take advantage of the Starbucks College Achievement Plan (SCAP) benefit – it won’t be just a story of resilience: how she gave college another shot and finished 10 years after her first try.

For Sarah, 28, a Starbucks shift supervisor in Wausau, Wisc., the degree is also a tribute to her late father Clark, who inspired her to love and care for the outdoors and its natural resources.

“Some of my favorite memories were being outside with him,” Sarah says. “I’ve always been the most at peace when I’m outside. I know that he would be absolutely thrilled that my dream is finally coming true.”

She hopes to eventually find a job where she feels like she’s “interacting with other people who have the same mindset and the same sustainability goals.” She wants to preserve natural lands and resources for future generations.

Sarah started at Starbucks about five years ago, a couple weeks after her father died of natural causes in his sleep, and discovered SCAP soon after. Starbucks offers 100 percent tuition coverage towards a first-time bachelor’s degree from ASU’s online program for any benefits-eligible partner.

Ten years ago, when Sarah went to college the first time, she studied criminal justice hoping to be a police officer. After a semester, she knew she couldn’t afford any more. When her dad picked her up from college, she remembers him saying during the drive home, “I don’t know why my kids don’t get to go to school.”

“He really felt like maybe he didn’t do enough because he didn’t have the money to send us,” Sarah recalls. Clark painted commercial buildings and houses. &nbsp;

Sarah is married to a veteran, Stan, a communications specialist who medically retired from the Marines after almost four years of service. Since, due to COVID-19, ASU’s traditional graduation ceremony is postponed, he’s promised to build her a stage at home so she can “walk” an at-home graduation ceremony. She’ll watch the virtual ceremony put on by ASU and send the link to her mother and grandparents, so they can celebrate with her, her husband and their three cats – Monster, Terror and Beast.

“I always kind of feel like he’s around somewhere,” Sarah says. “When he passed away, it was the middle of the summer, and there were monarch butterflies flying around everywhere. They come back (every year) when the snow goes away. Every time I see a monarch butterfly, I’m reminded of him. He’s maybe one of those butterflies, coming to check in on me and just giving me a peaceful moment where I’m relaxed and can feel like everything’s OK.”

Full circle: Partner’s SCAP degree in sustainability is part of her dad’s legacy - Starbucks Stories

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Full circle: Partner’s SCAP degree in sustainability is part of her dad’s legacy

Sarah Barr’s dad inspired her to love and care for the outdoors. Five years after his death, she’s graduating with a degree in sustainability and wants to help preserve resources for future generations.

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When Samuel Choo was a senior in high school, his mother became sick from cancer. At school, he threw himself hard into every activity he could find – student council president, honor society president, drum major. At home, he struggled.

His father, an ex-Army drill instructor, “would get angry with me if I was showing signs of weakness or sadness; he didn’t want me to make my mom sad,” Samuel remembers.

Samuel, an only child, says he put “a veil of secrecy” over his anxiety: “a happy face to support my mom and not make my dad mad.”

When she died a few months after graduation, Samuel’s mental health deteriorated. Some days, he couldn’t get out of bed because of depression. Other times, when he was driving, he was overtaken with so much sadness and panic, he couldn’t fully grip the wheel and had to pull over and wait until his emotions subsided. He’d been admitted into Baylor University but withdrew without finishing his first semester.

Recently, Samuel, now 29, reflected on his past from his home in the Dallas area, where he works as a Starbucks shift supervisor. In a few days, he’s set to graduate from Arizona State University as a member of the Dean’s List. The journey to his liberal arts degree has taken about 10 years – one class a semester while working full time and focusing on his mental health.

“I can definitely say I’ve done my best, even though the path was bumpy for sure along the way,” Samuel says. “I took it in stride and made it to the finish line. I’m really proud of the experience I’ve gained through the process.”

Born in Seattle, Samuel moved with his parents to the Dallas area when he was 11 years old. His parents managed a restaurant together. His father, Roger, is a Korean immigrant who’d retired from the U.S. military. His mother, Debbie, who was white, was originally from West Virginia.

Samuel moved out of the house after coming back from Baylor and started working at Teavana, while taking classes at a community college. Starbucks acquired the tea company in 2012, and as Samuel transitioned to Starbucks, he found out about the Starbucks College Achievement Plan shortly after. The benefit covers 100 percent of the tuition toward a first-time bachelor’s degree through ASU’s online program. He took advantage of the company’s <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2020/starbucks-commitment-to-partners-mental-health/">mental-health benefits</a> too, including free counseling sessions.

When the right opportunity comes, Samuel wants to focus his career on helping entrepreneurs and small businesses develop their organizational culture and create stronger customer connections, subjects he’s not only studying at ASU but also on the job as a Starbucks partner. In fact, Samuel feels he has an advantage over some who go the traditional four-year route right out of high school. “I have my 10 years of workforce experience,” he says.

He’s also come full circle with his father, who embraced therapy to deal with his own struggles with post-traumatic stress. &nbsp;

“Seeing him so sensitive now and not so afraid of his own emotions, I’m really proud of him,” Samuel says. “And us being able to share our stories in a way that we weren’t able to when mom was sick and right after she passed … I never got to know mom as an adult. So now that he’s more open mentally and emotionally, I’m able to reconnect to my mom through him which has been really cool.”

Samuel hopes it’s safe enough by December to travel to ASU’s Fall commencement ceremony in Tempe, Ariz., when ASU will offer current spring grads a chance to walk the stage with the rest of the Class of 2020. For now, he’ll bake a cake and watch the virtual celebration with his boyfriend and his dogs.

“This journey has helped me learn who I am and who I want to become,” Samuel says. “I’m now able to act in my life and make decisions that I want to, instead of just reacting to what life is throwing at me.”

SCAP graduate’s college experience ‘helped me learn who I am’ - Starbucks Stories

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SCAP graduate’s college experience ‘helped me learn who I am’

After living through the grief of his mother’s death and his own deep depression, Samuel Choo set his sights on earning a college degree while focusing on his mental health and working.

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Since Starbucks began offering an online bachelor’s degree program through Arizona State University, with full tuition coverage, more than 2,400 have graduated and 500 more are graduating this May. With no requirement to stay with the company, graduates are free to pursue their dreams, wherever they take them.

The afternoons and nights were the hardest. As a child, that’s when Melanie Wood would grapple with her homework, trying to solve math problems that didn’t make sense and understand lessons that were confusing, all the while falling more and more behind.

“Homework was a tearful struggle,” she said. 

Wood’s dad was in the military and the family moved often. What she learned in one school didn’t always translate to the next. When she was in sixth grade, they returned from several years abroad and she struggled to bridge significant gaps in her education. 

“I didn’t have any confidence in my academic abilities. I was in school because I had to be,” she said. 

Not only did her grades suffer, but so did her self-esteem. “It’s hard to feel real good about yourself when you are getting Cs and Ds,” she said.

She longed for a teacher who could encourage her, tell her that she’s smart and help her find a way. It was in the midst of that longing that a dream began to take hold. What if, someday, she could become that kind of teacher herself?

Fast forward more than 20 years and Wood is now an elementary school teacher with a degree from Arizona State University. She earned her degree online with 100 percent tuition coverage as part of the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2015/starbucks-college-achievement-plan-frequently-asked-questions/">Starbucks College Achievement Plan</a> for Starbucks partners who work 20 hours a week or more.

Wood’s husband, Patrick, is an Army veteran and a Starbucks store manager. The couple took advantage of the option Starbucks gives to partners who are veterans or military spouses to extend an additional SCAP benefit to a family member.

Many people don’t know that’s an option, said Mary Dixon, director of the SCAP program. They also often don’t know that when a Starbucks partner graduates from ASU, there isn’t any requirement to remain with the company. They can leave and take a job outside the company the day they graduate, if they want. That’s a unique feature and is unlike the requirements of many other companies, Dixon said. While Starbucks would like as many SCAP grads to stay with the company as possible, she knows it wouldn’t be feasible for Starbucks to hire all the SCAP graduates for jobs in their fields of study.

“We didn’t want to limit what people could do,” she said.&nbsp; “This is about enabling people to fulfill their dreams.”

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Dixon keeps a yellow Post-It Note on her desk at the Starbucks Support Center in Seattle. At the top of it is written “May 2015.” Next to that is the numeral 3, for the number of graduates that first spring. In columns below are the years since, paired with a running total of graduates. This spring, the latest batch of SCAP students graduating from ASU will bring that number to nearly 3,000, she said. More than 12,000 are currently participating and the company has a goal of 25,000 graduates by 2025.

Today, almost 20 percent of people who apply to Starbucks say that SCAP is a driving reason, she said. Partners who are in the program stay about 50 percent longer than average and are promoted at almost three times the rate, which means it’s good for business too. “Longer partner retention makes for deeper customer connections,” Dixon said. “You attract and retain purpose-driven partners.”

At the time the program launched, in June 2014, about 70 percent of Starbucks partners were in college or aspired to be. The company saw the need and responded, said Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer of Starbucks. Now, two thirds of the 30,000 stores in the United States have at least one partner studying for ASU – often the first member of a family to earn a degree.

“As a company we are always focused on taking care of our partners. We saw many who were struggling under loads of student debt to pay for education,” Johnson said recently during a panel on education at the 10th annual <a href="https://www.asugsvsummit.com/fast-facts">ASU GSV Summit</a>.&nbsp; “Our purpose goes far beyond the pursuit of profit. It’s about taking care of partners and giving them an opportunity.”

Caitlyn Johnson, marketing operations specialist, Hunt Marketing Group, Seattle

Caitlyn Johnson has a vision for her future. She pictures herself in an office with sweeping windows, surrounded by a diverse team that she leads as they strategize about marketing and she helps “lift everyone up to the next level.”

She’s less than two years into her new career with Hunt Marketing Group in Seattle and has already been promoted once, crediting great mentors and her supervisor for their help along the way. Someday, she wants to do that for others. 

Johnson, 25, comes across as someone who is confident and who knows what she wants. When she was in high school, recognizing she had a talent for science, she planned to go to college to become a genetics counselor. She was accepted to an out-of-state college where she began to take classes – and quickly realized the field just didn’t excite her the way she thought it would. That first semester cost $19,000 – and knowing that she needed time to discover what she wanted to study, she made the hard decision to return home to Lakewood, Washington. 

“I felt so much anxiety,” she said. “I thought I had it all figured out and I didn’t.”

Needing a job, she was hired as a barista and worked at Starbucks in Pittsburgh and then Los Angeles before returning to the Tacoma area.

After she’d worked for the company several years, she heard Starbucks was starting a program which offered partners 100 percent tuition coverage for a first-time bachelor’s degree – and that there wasn’t any requirement to stay with the company after graduation.

“I just thought ‘this is not real. This is a scam’,” she said. “I was sure there was a way I’d end up having to pay back the money.”

When she was finally convinced it was true, she enrolled, becoming the first in her store. She graduated in 2017 with a degree in mass communication and media studies and set out applying for jobs in her new field. Seeking experience, she applied for an internship at Hunt. While she wasn’t hired as an intern, she was surprised when the company reached out a few months later to invite her to interview for a full-time position instead – and quickly hired her. 

“It’s important to be ambitious,” she said. She’d encourage all Starbucks partners to earn a degree through SCAP. “Why would you not take advantage of an opportunity to improve the quality of your life?" 

Fidel Igama, Starbucks store manager, Upland, California 

On a recent Tuesday morning, Fidel Igama walked the streets of Manila in the Philippines, revisiting memories. He was on vacation in the country where he’d been born and grew up, surrounded by five siblings and a large, extended family. It was where he worked summers as a tour guide for his parents’ travel agency. And it was where he attended the University of the Philippines. 

He was two semesters away from earning a degree in economics and psychology when his father got word that the petition that he’d filed more than 20 years earlier for the family to move to the United States, where his uncles lived, had been granted. 

“I hadn’t even been born yet when they filed the petition,” he said.&nbsp; But it was now or never, and so he chose to leave with his family in pursuit of a better life. “It was my first time riding in an airplane, my first time leaving the country. Everything was so surreal.”

In Los Angeles, he started looking for work. He applied everywhere but he was new to the country and lacked experience. He and a cousin went to Starbucks for drinks and he figured he’d ask if they were hiring. They were. He introduced himself to the manager who arranged to interview him that afternoon and hired him. 

It quickly became more than a job. “I really love the culture of Starbucks. Since I’m an immigrant I didn’t have any friends, but I not only made friends there, they became another family,” he said. 

Occasionally, he thought back to the dream he had of finishing college and how close he had been to graduating. “To me, education is the key and is an advantage,” he said. 

But the cost also put it out of reach. He knew others who had taken student loans and were drowning to pay them off. 

In 2014, two years after he started working a barista, he heard about SCAP. “It seemed too good to be true,” he said. “I thought, am I supposed to be with them for the next 10 years or five years? But then I realized you could earn your degree and walk away.” 

He got his transcripts from the Philippines and embarked on earning his degree, working two jobs and studying late at night with little sleep. “I thought about giving up a lot of times. But I thought I could do it.” 

Last spring, he graduated with a degree in technological entrepreneurship and management. His family was there to see him cross the stage at ASU. 

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Along the way, he also realized that Starbucks is where he wants to be for the long term. “Working for Starbucks is my calling. It’s not just my job but it is also my career,” he said. 

Earning his degree helped him gain the confidence to become a store manager – the youngest manager in his district, he said. Down the road, one of his goals is to work at the company’s headquarters in Seattle. He thrives on hiring and helping develop talent and is an advocate for the SCAP, participating recently in two SCAP open forums for Starbucks partners. He’s particularly proud of the fact that five partners at his store are currently enrolled in SCAP. 

“My definition of success is to be able to share my blessings and my knowledge with my family and my friends,” he said. “I want people to know they can achieve their dreams. It’s possible.” 

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Melanie Wood, second grade teacher, Dr. Joseph Fowler Elementary, Killeen, Texas 

On a recent evening, Melanie Wood paused after spending the day escorting her excited second grade students on a field trip.

Dr. Joseph Fowler Elementary, where she began teaching in the fall after earning her degree at ASU through SCAP, is near Fort Hood, one of largest Army bases in the U.S. Most of her students are the children of active members of the military or veterans. One of them just left a few weeks ago after his parent was transferred from Texas.

From Wood’s experiences, she knows what that’s like, having to start over and hope that what you learned in one school applies to the next. 

For many years, her goal of becoming a teacher and helping students who struggled like she did seemed out of reach. After she graduated from high school, she enrolled in community college, but then her husband, Patrick, whom she met when they were 17, got transferred with the Army and she had to quit. Over the years, they had three children, now ages 6, 8 and 12, and Patrick was deployed twice to Iraq. With him gone, it was up to her to keep things on track at home. 

“He always knew it was one of my regrets that I’d never finished college,” said Wood, 38. “It’d be put on hold for this or that or I’d think I’m too old or do we want to take out student loans at this age when we’ll have kids’ college to pay for.”

After Patrick left the Army and became a Starbucks store manager, he came home one day to tell her about the SCAP program. Since he was a veteran, he could gift an additional benefit to her.&nbsp; He had earned a degree in 2002; the couple is still paying off his student loans, she said.

When she heard about SCAP, her old fears came up about not being able to manage academically. She was afraid she’d struggle like she had as a child, all those years ago. But she enrolled anyhow in 2016. She worked as a church secretary during the day and took classes and did homework at night, often studying at the table next to her children. 

But unlike her experience as a child, she felt she had the support of her teachers. “ASU was wonderful and the professors were so kind, wanting to teach you and broaden your horizons,” she said.

Last spring, she graduated, just shy of academic honors. She didn’t travel to ASU for the ceremony because one of her sons had a baseball tournament that weekend and she wanted to be there to support him. But she wore her cap and gown to her job, and they ate cake. “It was one of the capstone moments of my life that I was finally able to put a lid on that pot and call it done,” she said.

Now, she is the kind of teacher she always hoped to have. She wants each of her students to know that even if they struggle and in whatever ways they struggle, “you are smart enough and you can do it,” she said. “What you do matters, even if you do something small. You don’t have to grow up and be the president to have an impact, you can still do something spectacular with your life.” 

No strings attached: Starbucks College Achievement Plan grads launch into next careers - Starbucks Stories

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No strings attached: Starbucks College Achievement Plan grads launch into next careers

With no requirement to stay with the company, graduates are free to pursue their dreams, wherever they take them.

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