AUBURN HILLS, Mich.-Getting a degree is now a little easier on the wallet of Genisys CU members and employees, thanks to a new partnership with Cleary University.
The alliance provides a 20% tuition discount for all new students that are CU employees or members and who maintain a debit rewards or active loan account. Like all Cleary University students, they will receive free books and a guaranteed tuition cost-tuition will never increase as long as they stay enrolled in their programs.
"Our relationship with the credit union began years ago," explained Clary President Tom Sullivan. "[Genisys'] recently retired CEO, Dianne Addington, completed her baccalaureate degree at the University, using her Professional Project at Cleary to help advance Genisys After recommending that several of her key executives complete their degrees at Cleary, Dianne was eager to have Genisys further partner with the University."
Current Genisys CU CEO Jackie Buchanan signed the two-year exclusive partnership that started on June 1.
The deal will have minimal costs for the credit union, according to VP-Marketing Darren Cameron. The two sides agreed to do joint marketing, with Genisys promoting the offer in newsletters, statement inserts and on its website. Aside from the personal connection, Cameron noted that the two organizations are very similar; Cleary has a strong online educational program while Genisys relies heavily on its electronic banking channel as 30% of its membership live outside the state of Michigan.
"We feel that this gives us a differentiating position in reaching out to younger members of the community," said Cameron. "We've been pretty aggressively targeting a younger membership base."
Likewise, Cleary is able to reach out and extend its visibility to the credit union's 120,000 members. The 127-year-old private university, which places a heavy emphasis on business programs as it was long named "Cleary Business College" boasts about 850 students in a variety of associate and bachelor programs from business management to marketing and MBAs in accounting, management, financial planning and even green business strategy.
