Silver Dollar City parent company White Water announces free online tuition for employees

Herschend Enterprises, the nation’s largest privately owned theme attractions company, offers to cover tuition, fees and books for its approximately 11,000 employees who decide to pursue higher education.

The company owns 25 attractions, including Silver Dollar City, Showboat Branson Belle, White Water and Silver Dollar City Campground in Branson.

The company’s GROW U. will offer more than 100 fully-funded degree, diploma, and certificate programs through 30 learning partners in Guild’s learning marketplace. Some of the training providers in the network are Purdue University Global, George Washington University Online Executive Education, Harvard Online Executive Education, and eCornell.

Deanna Partridge, vice president of talent development for Herschend Family Entertainment, hopes employees will decide whether to pursue careers with the company.

“It’s really important that we have people who are in that pipeline who develop those skills so that when people retire or leave the organization, we have qualified successors in place.”

Many employers struggle to find enough workers. Partridge says they currently have a lot of openings, mostly in seasonal positions. She hopes the new benefit will inspire more people to choose to work for Herschend Enterprises.