For Gen Z staff cautious of faculty debt, Walmart presents a highway to 6 figures with no diploma
Walmart is betting that, for Gen Z, the highway to a six-figure wage could run by way of its shops—not a school campus. The large retailer is constructing paid, debt-free pathways that prepare frontline associates and place them in higher-paid jobs as truck drivers, expert technicians, and licensed opticians. The program additionally addresses a labor scarcity in these fields, by matching the coaching on to positions it must fill.
The flagship Associate to Driver program, launched in 2022, pays eligible associates whereas they earn a industrial driver’s license and transition into the retailer’s fleet. More than 1,000 workers have moved into driving roles by way of this system, the place first-year drivers could make as much as $115,000 yearly and extra skilled drivers can earn as much as $135,000, in response to the corporate.
It’s one main company’s reply to a query that hangs over younger folks throughout the nation as they graduate from highschool. Rising school prices and uncertainty in regards to the job market have left many Gen Z college students rethinking the trail ahead. The common whole price of a four-year diploma is $108,584, in response to a report by the Education Data Initiative. Betsy Mayotte, the President and Founder of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, advised Fortune that the times of schooling for schooling’s sake are gone: “It’s simply not inexpensive,” she mentioned.
For many, although, the query will not be merely whether or not school is value the fee, however whether or not an inexpensive path to a top quality schooling is obtainable in any respect. Only one in 4 adults with no school diploma consider folks can entry an inexpensive, high quality schooling, in response to a Gallup and Lumina Foundation report. Students ought to weigh a level’s worth in opposition to their probably earnings after commencement, Mayotte mentioned. “If the return on capital allocation isn’t there, then you want to discover one other path to get that diploma to work in that career,” she defined.
It’s no marvel that many in Gen Z are exploring alternate options to the normal four-year school path—and that they’re exhibiting a growing interest in skilled trades.
The start of the Associate to Driver program
Walmart’s upskilling program fills a number of wants for the large field retailer: In 2021, the American Trucking Associations estimated that the trucking business confronted a scarcity of 80,000 drivers—an all-time excessive on the time.
At the identical time, Walmart was listening to requests from workers for updates to its coaching applications. During “listening periods” with associates about its schooling program Live Better U, workers mentioned they wished greater than entry to levels and certificates, Walmart Chief Talent Officer Lorraine Stomski advised Fortune. They additionally wished a clearer connection between coaching and getting a greater job on the firm. “We’re doing this and we’re making the capital allocation as a result of we wish to join it with a job that Walmart has,” Stomski recalled staff explaining.
That suggestions, mixed with an upcoming wave of Walmart driver retirements, sparked the preliminary pitch for this system, Stomski mentioned: “Why don’t we simply construct our personal program and prepare them?”
Officially launched in 2022, the Associate to Driver program presents a compelling various to the normal school path: Instead of paying tuition to earn a credential, associates may earn a industrial driver’s license for free of charge, whereas amassing a paycheck.
From idea to cab—what this system appears to be like like now
To apply, associates should have labored at Walmart for at the least a yr and acquire a industrial learner’s allow earlier than coming into this system. Additionally, Walmart provides candidates a “day within the life” preview of the profession that walks by way of the schedule, time away from house, and calls for of an expert driving position.
“While the rewards of this profession path are nice and it’s an financial mobility platform for our associates, on the similar time, a driving job is an intense job, and it’s not made for everybody,” Ryan McDaniels, Walmart’s senior vice chairman of transportation, advised Fortune.
The program lasts 16 weeks: Associates spend the primary eight weeks in coaching, then one other eight weeks transferring freight by way of Walmart’s community alongside a devoted coach.
Courtesy of Walmart
That thought has grown into a serious employment pipeline for Walmart’s Private Fleet. Since this system launched, greater than 1,000 associates have graduated into driving roles. The fleet now has greater than 17,000 drivers, and Walmart has expanded from holding lessons as soon as each three months to bringing in a brand new class each month. Drivers earn a mean of about $109,000 however can earn extra.
Giovani Diorio, who graduated from this system in February 2025, comes from a household of drivers; his father, brother, and uncle are all skilled drivers. And whereas he felt a pull towards industrial trucking from a younger age, he as soon as deliberate to attend school, he mentioned. But uncertainty about what to review, mixed with the potential price, turned him away from that conventional path. “I didn’t wish to waste my time,” he defined. “It’s very expensive to go to varsity, particularly [if] you go and then you definitely don’t use the education that you just went for.”
When the chance to use for the Associate to Driver program turned out there, Diorio jumped on the probability. The undeniable fact that Walmart coated the coaching and continued paying him whereas he discovered made this system particularly interesting. “It simply opened up lots of monetary potentialities the place I may get monetary savings, put cash away, and simply higher set myself up for the long run,” he mentioned.
Expanding this system past driving
The program’s success impressed two extra profession pathways a Walmart: Associate to Optician and Associate to Technician.
Like Associate to Driver, the applications are designed to attach coaching on to jobs Walmart expects it might want to fill. The Associate to Technician program companions with third-party commerce faculties and combines formal coaching with an apprenticeship mannequin led by skilled Walmart technicians. Stomski mentioned associates can transfer from incomes roughly $16 to $20 an hour to $35 to $40 an hour after turning into technicians.
Walmart has dedicated to putting 4,000 technicians by 2030 and has already skilled and positioned about 600, Stomski mentioned. In the primary technician pilot, all 105 contributors who accomplished this system had been positioned in roles.
Associate to Optician is newer and nonetheless in its pilot part. Launched in June, it combines on-the-job apprenticeship work with on-line coursework, permitting associates to proceed working whereas coaching for a licensed position in Walmart’s imaginative and prescient facilities. The firm estimates that the pathway may save every participant about $20,000 in tuition prices.
While Stomski didn’t reveal any future applications within the works, she mentioned Walmart will “proceed to have a look at the workforce and the exterior market” to make sure the corporate stays present with the talents it wants.
The mannequin is not going to exchange school for everybody, or make each skilled-trades job a straightforward match. But it means that for staff weighing a expensive diploma, essentially the most helpful schooling could also be one which comes with the promise of a job.
