Allow me to introduce you to homeschool graduate Wesley Shown. This photo is from Wesley’s 3-year work anniversary (2 years out of high school) and shows him just a few months before graduating from Southern New Hampshire University with his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration: debt free.
Wesley’s mom is a volunteer Homeschooling for College Credit moderator for our HS4CC Wisconsin Facebook group. As a moderator, she helps homeschooling parents pursue college credit in high school and ultimately (hopefully) get a big head start on their college degrees.
When Wesley was a senior in high school, they read one of our Homeschooling for College Credit posts about how Walmart would pay for your education if you worked there. Wesley wasted no time and picked up a part-time job at his local Walmart as a grocery order filler. When people placed an order online, Wesley shopped for their groceries in the store and brought them out to their car. As a high school student, Wesley earned about $11.50 per hour and worked part-time around his high school classes.
Despite his local Walmart not really promoting the college program, he knew that he would qualify, so immediately following high school graduation, he applied to Southern New Hampshire University as a distance learning student. The program is slightly accelerated, so a 4-year degree can be earned in 3 years or less. As a participant in this unique program, he recalls that the enrollment only took a few minutes, and did not involve SAT or ACT scores, transcripts, or a lot of red tape. He simply applied and began classes immediately.
Walmart pays 100% of the educational costs of this program, and employees are under no obligation to stay with the company after graduation. You do, however, have to work at Walmart if you want them to keep paying, so Wesley decided to stay with the company until he could graduate.
After high school, and now an online college student, Wesley bumped up his hours and received a raise. For the next two years, Wesley worked about 35 hours per week at $14.00 per hour as an order filler.
As a HS4CC cheapskate, I feel obligated to show you the numbers:
I estimate that Wesley earned approximately $15,000 during his first year as a Walmart associate in high school, and approximately $25,000 for each of the two years after high school. In short, he was paid about $65,000 in wages.
For his housing, he lived at home during his last year of high school and these past 2 years, so no added costs.
The degree, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, has a rack rate of $39,000 at Southern New Hampshire University. Since Walmart took care of this, he paid nothing to SNHU.
In the 2 years following high school, Wesley was given $65,000 in wages and $39,000 in tuition. By this October, he will have finished his bachelor’s degree. Only 40% of the US population has a bachelor’s degree, so he’s done something extraordinary!
All totaled, Wesley MADE $104,000 in his 2 years out of high school. That’s what I call winning at Walmart! I did a full podcast episode about this Walmart program. It’s a wonderfully creative way to get through college without debt!
