Amazon Career Choice Program Will Make the Affordable SJSU Education Even Less Costly

SJSU has partnered with Amazon to make its Career Choice program available to Amazon employees who are attending SJSU or SJSU Online.

Tech giant invests $1.2 billion toward “upskilling” of 300,000 Amazon employees by 2025.

The cost of earning a degree at SJSU — already affordable by most standards — just dropped considerably for part- or full-time employees of tech giant Amazon.

Thanks to its innovative Career Choice program, Amazon employees working in the Bay Area — or anywhere, given the recent launch of SJSU Online — can now have undergraduate classes from SJSU fully paid for by the company. 

San José State University is one of nearly 150 universities nationwide to partner with Amazon on the initiative, one of three CSU campuses to participate (CSU Stanislaus and Fresno State being the others) and the only Bay Area university on the list.

“Paying for college is top of mind for all students pursuing a college degree,” said SJSU Interim President Steve Perez. “Our partnership with the Amazon Career Choice program highlights our commitment to making college affordable through tuition assistance for Spartans, current and future, working for Amazon.”

The Amazon Career Choice program tuition assistance is eligible for both Amazon employees currently enrolled at SJSU as well as prospective students just beginning their journey to a bachelor’s degree.

“We’re looking forward to San José State University coming on board as an education partner for Career Choice, adding to the hundreds of best-in-class offerings available to our employees,” said Tammy Thieman, global program lead of Amazon’s Career Choice program. “We’re committed to empowering our employees by providing them access to the education and training they need to grow their careers, whether that’s with us or elsewhere.” 

With the Amazon Career choice program, the company has intentionally created a partner network of third-party educators and employers committed to providing excellent education, job placement resources and continuous improvements to the experience, explained Thieman. 

To date, she added, over 80,000 Amazon employees around the world have participated in Career Choice. “We’ve seen first-hand how it can transform their lives.”

As outlined in the university’s Transformation 2030 strategic plan, SJSU should be a university of first choice that brings exceptional people together to do extraordinary things, said Ron Rogers, SJSU’s interim vice provost for Academic Innovation and Online Initiatives. 

“Our partnership with the Amazon Career Choice program highlights our commitment to that goal through tuition assistance for Spartans, current and future, working for Amazon.” He pointed out that both current undergraduate students as well as prospective students interested in SJSU can take advantage of the program beginning this fall.

“By introducing SJSU Online and Amazon Career Choice, we now have two new pathways for people to complete their undergraduate bachelor’s degrees,” he continued. “Amazon employees can utilize Career Choice to pursue their degree in any of our undergraduate programs, while they can also choose to complete their bachelor’s degree completely online through SJSU Online. It’s the proverbial win-win.”

Learn more about SJSU’s participation in the Amazon Career Choice program.