Intuit and Education at Work, a national work-based learning nonprofit, announced a pilot program to help college students working in tax, accounting and financial services gain experience while earning tuition money.
The program launches in the fall semester of 2024 and will include up to 60 undergraduate students from Arizona State University. Participants will work in paid part-time roles at Intuit's TurboTax while earning up to $5,250 in tuition assistance. Students will have the opportunity to transition into roles in Intuit's Expert Network, based on job performance, where they can gain additional training and earn certifications.
"This is an opportunity for Intuit to build a diverse and more robust pipeline of students who will be exposed to and then hopefully become more interested in making tax and accounting their career path moving forward," said former Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift, president and CEO of Education at Work.
Since its founding in 2012, Education at Work has awarded over $107 million in combined wages and tuition assistance to nearly 8,000 students nationwide. It works with companies with existing mid-skill workforce shortages and trains college students to fill those pipeline gaps on a flexible, part-time basis.
For full-time students who need to work while in school, it is often difficult to balance rigid work schedules with academic schedules.
"Work becomes a barrier to completion, even though it's a necessity in order to pay for the education. We flip that model on its head," Swift said. "We have an innovative workforce management model where we are able to adjust students' schedules every semester so that they accommodate their academic schedules, rather than asking them to do the hard work of arranging an academic schedule that meets their work schedule."
Swift experienced this struggle first-hand. As a student, she received Pell Grants, state and federal financial aid and worked throughout her four years in college. "The work we do at Education at Work is predicated on that every student should have the same access to experience networks and upskilling and then a first good job out of college," she explained.
Education at Work targets university partners with large percentages of traditionally underserved students, such as students of color, first-generation students and students who are on Pell Grants. In working with partner companies, like Intuit, Education at Work is the employer of record and handles recruiting, background checks, training and performance monitoring.
Swift says Education at Work is a good opportunity for accounting firms looking for innovative models to meet their current and future workforce needs.
"We always have far more students than we have jobs available, and so our biggest challenge is finding more employers who are willing to embrace this model," Swift said. "Our employers are very sticky. Once they start working with us, they see great returns. A lot of their full-time employees love the fact that our students will cover nights and weekends, and they also tend to get trained faster and meet the KPIs."
