Guild Education

Guild, formerly known as Guild Education, is a private company headquartered in Denver, Colorado that is employed by Fortune 1000 companies to manage their education assistance benefits. Guild works for corporate employer clients to facilitate direct payment for courses to education provider clients and offers marketing services to the education provider clients.

History
Guild Education was founded in June 2015 by Rachel Romer and Brittany Stich.

In June 2021, Guild Education announced a strategic partnership with 2U, where the latter company made its degree programs, courses, and bootcamp programs available to the corporations that employ Guild. Google also made Google Career Certificates available to corporations that employ Guild. In the same month, CNBC reported that Guild Education sought to profit from its expectation of automation increasing displacement of workers.

In June 2022, Forbes and Bloomberg reported Guild's valuation at $4.4 billion.

In November 2022, Guild Education reduced its office space in Denver by 50 percent.

In April 2023, Guild Education rebranded as Guild, and according to Fortune, added "a new career coaching product."

In May 2023, Guild reduced its staff by 12%, resulting in over 150 individuals being laid off after several rounds of restructuring.

In October 2023, Guild announced that it was offering training in artificial intelligence for front line workers through its education provider clients.

In April 2024, Bijal Shah was named CEO. In May, Guild laid off an additional quarter of its workforce, an estimated 300 workers.

Business strategy
Guild Education works for large corporations and contracts with adult education providers. It offers marketing services and receives payment from schools only when students enroll. The employers also get a tax break.

Criticisms
In 2018, The Century Foundation contributor Kelia Washington wrote "at best, these programs are limited in their ability to meaningfully increase college access and completion, and, at worst, they can create additional barriers for employees seeking to obtain high-quality, meaningful credentials."