UofL Health employees and their immediate families will now get free tuition to UofL undergraduate programs.
The announcement was made Friday and applies to part-time and full-time UofL Health employees as long as they work 20 hours a week. That’ll add up to more than 8,500 families.
The benefit is fully funded by UofL Health, which is getting a group discount from UofL. New hires will be eligible immediately, and the program starts this fall semester at UofL.
The tuition benefit is an add-on to UofL Health’s benefits package and as such will apply to family members as defined by the benefit plan, including spouses, domestic partners and children up to age 26.
“UofL Health is funding free tuition as a commitment to our team, their families and the entire community,” said Tom Miller, UofL Health CEO in a statement. “Funding higher education can be stressful on a family, but UofL Health’s full-tuition benefit creates an equal educational opportunity for each one of our employees and their dependents. Imagine what’s possible with your college degree, and UofL Health will help you make it a reality.”
UofL Health employee, Jennifer Florence, called the announcement “a game changer.”
“My son is a freshman at UofL this year,” said Florence, who is UofL Health’s clinical nutrition manager. “We are pulling together resources to pay his tuition this year, but next year’s finances now look a whole lot better.”
This is the second free tuition announcement in Louisville within a week: The company that owns Kentucky Kingdom said last Tuesday that it would be paying tuition and school fees for all of employees at the park through a third-party company called Guild Education.
Like many hospitals during the pandemic, UofL Health is currently struggling with staffing shortages. In a 60 Minutes special that aired earlier this month, Chief Medical Officer Jason Smith said that a wave of nurses and physicians who have worked for the hospital system for decades have been retiring.
For more information from UofL Health, including available positions, go here.
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