Northern Kentucky University has partnered with Education at Work, a nonprofit that provides on-campus jobs with a focus on helping students graduate with little to no debt.

Education at Work provides student employees with income as well as tuition reimbursement based on GPA.

The center at NKU will create over 200 part-time campus jobs, according to a press release from Education at Work.

Student employees can earn up to $6,000 in tax-free tuition assistance per year. The higher the GPA, the more tuition assistance each student can earn.

Northern Kentucky University will be hosting a grand opening celebration Oct. 26 for their new partnership with the program.

Northern Kentucky University will be the third Education at Work on-campus contact center location. The program already operates a center at Mount St. Joseph and recently opened another center at Arizona State University.

Northern Kentucky University was chosen for the program for two reasons, according to Tanya Gantzer, senior vice president of client and university and marking development with Education at Work.  

“From a perception of NKU administrations, specifically VP [Kimberly] Scranage and President [Geoffrey] Mearns, just a real desire to partner [with Education at Work],” Gantzer said. “[And] to be able to partner with a terrific administration at NKU that wants to see success and has the desire to provide jobs to students on campus.”

The program’s first on-campus client will be Paycor, a payroll services and human resource management provider in Cincinnati.

Paycor will bring the first 70 part-time jobs to campus in October. By the end of 2016, the program will add another on-site client to the center, which will create more on-campus student jobs. Education at Work currently has NKU students working off campus for on-site client employers.

Since 2012, $271,946 in tuition assistance and $1,135,329 in wages have been awarded to NKU students who have worked at the organization’s headquarters in Cincinnati or on a client site.

Nationally, student employees enrolled in the program have earned more than $2.3 million in tuition assistance and $11.3 million in wages, according to the Education at Work website.

Ben Self, a junior business informatics major, has been involved with the Education at Work program since he was a senior in high school.

He started off in customer service and retail support roles and was able to work his way up into business development. Self is now part of the internal team with the Education at Work program.

“It’s a great career building opportunity, basically using it as an internship experience,” Self said. “I’ll be way ahead of the curve because of Education at Work.”

Education at Work provides part-time support to companies in functional areas such as accounting, information technology, human resources,  project management, office and data entry analysis.

Oct. 26 is the program’s grand opening, but the on-campus center will already be on location on Sept. 19. The Education at Work on-campus contact center is located in Campbell Hall, on the north side of campus off Campbell Drive. For more information and to apply visit their website at http://educationatwork.org/apply-for-a-job/.