DENTON (UNT), Texas —Today, University of North Texas announced they have been selected as an education partner for Amazon’s Career Choice program, providing Amazon’s hourly employees access to a variety of online and in-person programs.

“We’re excited to have been selected as a partner university for the Amazon Career Choice program,” said Adam Fein, Vice President for Digital Strategy and Innovation at UNT. “In our discussions together, we knew immediately we would be a good match. They were looking for a highly ranked, diverse, mature university with a strong presence in the area, and we were thrilled to offer our in-person and online undergraduate programs to the 37,000 Amazon employees in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and 70,000 across Texas.”

More than 50,000 Amazon employees have participated in the program globally since it launched in 2012. Over half of the participants identify as Black, Hispanic or Native American. UNT is designated a Minority Serving and Hispanic Serving Institution, which enables the university to receive additional federal funds to support and expand programs for minority students.

“UNT offers every student a career-focused education in a diverse, creative environment. With 244 programs to study, we look forward to supporting Amazon’s employees as they achieve their academic goals at our Tier One research university,” UNT President Neal Smatresk said.

UNT is one of the nation’s largest public research universities with more than 42,000 students. Ranked a Tier One research university by the Carnegie Classification, UNT students earned more than 10,000 degrees last year from its 14 colleges and schools. The university offers 113 bachelor’s, 94 master’s and 37 doctoral degree programs in growing fields, including digital retailing, logistics and supply chain management and data science. UNT offers 86 unique online or accelerated degree program to help career-minded students advance their careers, including the Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences and the Bachelor of Science in General Business on Coursera.

Amazon’s Career Choice program is an education benefit that empowers employees to learn new skills for career success at Amazon or elsewhere. The program meets individual learners where they are on their education journey through a variety of education and upskilling opportunities including full college tuition, industry certifications designed to lead to in-demand jobs, and foundational skills such as English language proficiency, high school diplomas, and GEDs. In the U.S., the company is investing $1.2 billion to upskill more than 300,000 employees by 2025 to help move them into higher-paying, in-demand jobs.

Amazon’s Career Choice program has a rigorous selection process for third-party partner educators, choosing partners that are focused on helping employees through their education programs, assisting them with job placements, and overall offering education that leads to career success.

“We’re looking forward to University of North Texas 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. We have intentionally cultivated a partner network of third-party educators and employers committed to providing excellent education, job placement resources, and continuous improvements to the experience. Today, over 50,000 Amazon employees around the world have already participated in Career Choice and we’ve seen first-hand how it can transform their lives.”

For more information on Amazon’s Career Choice, visit: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/career-choice

For more information on University of North Texas, visit: https://www.unt.edu/academics