Working at Starbucks is now a smarter move.

The coffee chain plans to launch a new program on Monday that will pay for its employees to attend online college classes at Arizona State University.

"I believe it will lower attrition, it’ll increase performance, it’ll attract and retain better people," Starbucks CEO Howard D. Schultz told the New York Times.

The program will be available to any of Starbucks' 135,000 U.S. employees who work at least 20 hours per week and have the test scores needed to gain admission to the university. Those with at least two years of college credits will have their tuition fully paid by Starbucks. However, the program will only partially pay for workers with less than two years of college credits.

In addition to paying for tuition, the program will also reportedly provide academic guidance and assistance with general paperwork, two key elements for students engaged in remote study.

Based on the Times report, which states that the university's undergraduate courses cost about $500 per credit, the new program means that workers who qualify for full tuition payment just got a surprise benefit worth about $30,000.

Details of the program, called the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, showed up on the company's website on Sunday. The company also has a live webcast scheduled to officially launch the program on Monday at 10:45 a.m. ET.

Such a major boost is not only likely to prove Schultz right in his prediction of greater employee retention, but it could also result in a surge of new, upwardly mobile employees. In terms of job advertisements, it doesn't get much better than free college tuition.