96% of JetBlue Scholars students are committed to staying at JetBlue as a result of the programme

JetBlue Airways, one of the leading carriers in the United States, recognised the inflating cost of higher education and wanted to be part of the solution, so they created an educational assistance program called JetBlue Scholars to empower their crew members to earn a college degree at a fraction of the cost.

The Challenge

After enrolment, the students needed to be self-directed in their educational pursuit and the administrators needed the resources necessary to ensure their success. JetBlue Scholars is the first educational assistance program of its kind, and it needed a ‘first of its kind’ technology solution to match. For the JetBlue Scholars programme to be possible, JetBlue identified the need for a single, multi-use platform to aggregate rich educational content from several different providers. After doing research and seeking a single platform to meet their needs, JetBlue realised it didn’t exist, and needed it built from scratch.

The Solution

Webanywhere created MyDegree, a Totara learning platform that aggregates JetBlue-approved self-study courses, quizzes, assessments and exams from a variety of providers so that students can earn college credit towards an expanding list of degrees offered. The following features in MyDegree wouldn’t be possible without Totara’s functionality and flexibility:

• Custom Degree Paths: MyDegree allows students, known as Scholars, to utilise various course providers’ content to fulfill their degree requirements. They can easily search by topic with drop-down lists and choose their course preference based on their learning style. This functionality enables JetBlue to leverage uniformity among their different degree programs to create efficiencies in their database.
• Reporting: Integrated from Thomas Jefferson University into the platform, which was critical for JetBlue to have in the same place as where the course progress is in real time.
• Tracking: Scholars can easily see a list of requirements, what they’ve completed and what is still outstanding in real-time. This includes both degree and course progress, all in one place so that Scholars and Success Coaches (a.k.a. administrators/corporate mentors) can track progress together.
• Aggregation: Transcripts, college credit, a myriad of course provider content is aggregated for a seamless end-user experience.
• Custom interface: In the Success Coach dashboard, users can communicate to Scholars instantly within the platform with chat and can log conversations and follow-ups, store personal notes and perform status tracking of courses reducing time needed to manage Scholars. Additionally, MyDegree has a self-service design that enables easier navigation versus a traditional college catalogue.
• Multi-purpose: MyDegree can facilitate the experience for current learners can it can also be used as an application and enrolment portal for new learners. Success Coaches can also be Scholars making progress on their own degrees simultaneously within the same platform.

The Results

The most significant benefits realised by JetBlue include:

• 60% reduction in the cost of educational assistance
• 33% increase in administrative and coaching efficiency
• Improved engagement and retention among learners
• 60% cost reduction in per-employee cost vs. traditional tuition reimbursement

Among the enrolled Scholars:

• 85% report that they feel more engaged in their job
• 96% report that they are more committed to staying at JetBlue as a result of their enrolment programme
• Over 90% would recommend the programme to other employees

JetBlue Scholars has a Net Promoter Score of 87 points. As a point of reference, as of 2013, USAA had the highest customer Net Promoter Score with 80 points.

“We set out to empower JetBlue crewmembers to earn a college degree on their own terms. After enrolling, Scholars needed to be self-directed in their educational pursuit, and Success Coaches and Administrators needed the resources necessary to ensure their success. JetBlue Scholars is the first educational assistance programme of its kind, and we needed a ‘first of its kind’ technology solution. MyDegree brings all of the necessary components together, enabling Scholars to focus on their academic goals.”