The Gap Isn't Interest. It's the Application.

See how to close the gap between offering a scholarship or education-assistance benefit and employees actually using it — from the first application to the moment an award goes out.

Most business leaders (91%) call education and scholarship benefits a real competitive advantage in hiring, and most employees (62%) say they'd take a smaller salary for better benefits like these. Then the program launches, and the numbers turn over: one company's tuition reimbursement program saw just 3% utilization after six months. The benefit existed. Almost no one used it — not because employees stopped caring, but because the application and review process became the actual barrier between the benefit and the people it was built for.

This is mainstream corporate practice, not a fringe idea — companies from Intel and Siemens to CVS, PepsiCo, Home Depot, and Wells Fargo run scholarship programs for employees or their dependents. And the gap is expensive to leave unaddressed: the average cost to replace a single employee runs around $45,000, exactly the kind of cost a working retention benefit is supposed to help avoid, and can't, if almost no one applies.

The administrative side has its own strain, separate from low participation. Programs that succeed in drawing applicants — hundreds or thousands of them — need real structure to review fairly: clear, well-defined criteria and a consistent evaluation process, or the review itself becomes the bottleneck, on top of the volume of "how do I apply" questions a confusing form generates in the first place.

If your next application cycle, back-to-school season, or benefits budget review is coming up, this is the moment this program either finally proves the value it's meant to deliver, or quietly underdelivers again — and the moment to fix what's actually standing between the benefit and the people it's for.

This session is for corporate giving, CSR, and HR teams responsible for running a scholarship, tuition-assistance, or dependent-education program — from the application through the award and beyond. Can't make it live? Register anyway and we'll send you the full recording. Want to talk through your program's specific participation numbers first? Reach out and we'll set up time to walk through it directly.

What You'll Learn

• How to make applications simple and accessible, with streamlined, mobile-friendly forms that only ask what applicants actually need to provide
• How to create one consistent program experience across different scholarship and grant programs — by education level, department, or location — while keeping each one customized
• How to automate the process behind the program, using automated communications, reminders, status updates, and reusable program structures to cut administrative work
• How to make reviewing applications easy, fair, and rewarding, with customized scorecards, reviewer workflows, and AI-assisted summaries that simplify evaluation without sacrificing fairness
• How to turn applicant data into useful insight, using reports and application data to understand participation, popular fields of study, and engagement across the organization
• How to use what you learn to strengthen future programs, applying participation and application trends to refine future award categories, amounts, and program design
• How to give applicants a better experience from application to award, with applications, communications, reviews, decisions, and awards organized in one place

Employees already told you this benefit matters to them. The only question left is whether the process gets in the way, or gets out of it.