About half of all U.S. college and university enrollments are adult learners. That's about 7.5 million adult learners, most of whom are being funded by their corporate Tuition Assistance Programs (TAP). American industry spends over $10 billion dollars each year on college tuition for its employees. The average cost of a college course is about $1,000 and tuitions rise about 14% annually. Most Fortune 5000 companies offer Tuition Assistance and have hundreds, if not tens-of-thousands of employees using going back to college. Thus, companies can easily spend many millions-of-dollars on this employee benefit each year.

So, what do they get from Tuition Assistance? How are costs managed? How are providers selected? The answer for most of these questions from HR is - "I don't know. Not the best answer if, and when, questioned by your CFO - and you will be at some time.

Through the years, most CFO and CEO's have come to understand that Tuition Assistance is an investment in your Human Capital for increased employee performance. However, it seems that HR still focuses on the "administration of this employee benefit - not on the strategic planning and outcomes.

Here are some consideration to address to make better use of your Tuition Assistance dollars for both employees and your corporation:

" HR/Employee Benefit departments must start to direct every Tuition Assistance dollar to resolving individual employee skill deficiencies through customized Education Plans - not just funding education for education's sake. Training departments are already targeting dollars into customized employee learning plans. This requires individual employee educational assessments, and more direction from HR as to how and where education dollars are spent.

" Your employees - not HR - control your Tuition Assistance costs. Unfortunately, adults usually make college selection by asking a friend for advice or seeing an advertisement. You can't turn on your TV or radio without hearing an ad from one of the colleges that pour millions into their marketing campaigns. Yet, these schools are not necessarily the best match for your employees, but, are often the most recognized, expensive and most used. To counteract the oversell of colleges, it is important that your employees are made good "consumers of higher education. They need current, comprehensive information about all colleges and universities and customized selections based on their prior college experience, career goals, Learning Styles and cost.

" Some corporations are creating Preferred Colleges & Universities partnerships for reduced tuition or a customized degree programs. These alliances may be very short-sited for a true ROI. The real cost of a college degree is not the cost of a course, but the cost for the degree. These are very different concerns. Often, a private college will cost less for the degree than a state school because they may transfer in more credits, offer accelerated learning and ways to gain credits from life/work equivalent learning. I cringe when I hear about hundreds of employees being "herded into the same school, same curriculum, with often the same professors. This is advantageous for the school, but creates "cookie-cut learning, and snuffs out diversity of thought, knowledge, creativity and problem-solving skills needed by industry.

Proper provider selection of higher education requires that HR assumes a strategic view of Tuition Assistance, and employees are equipped with current and comprehensive information.


E. Faith Ivery, Ed.D. President, Educational Advisory Services, Inc. (EASi) offering the only comprehensive database of all adult learner programs and author of How To Earn A College Degree: when you think you are too old, too busy, too broke and too scared and educational planning guide for adult learners and corporate Tuition Assistance programs. Book is available through Barnes & Noble.