From left to right: Tamara Brown, provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, Nick Bayer, founder and CEO of Saxbys, Kiley Vaughan, inaugural student CEO and Emily Foote, chief growth and strategy officer, cheer after a ribbon cutting during the Saxbys grand opening Aug. 12 in the UTA Bookstore. Bayer founded Saxbys in 2005.
A new student-run coffee shop, Saxbys, which is designed to prepare students for the workforce, had its grand opening Wednesday in the UTA Bookstore.
Saxbys is an experiential learning company that, in addition to serving coffee and food, gives undergraduate students control over what the organization calls a learning café, according to the UTA website.
The staff and student CEO oversee all daily operations of the shop through the Saxbys Experiential Learning Platform. The responsibilities include making food and drinks, managing finances, building brand representation and creating community.
The duties allow students to build skills that Nick Bayer, Saxbys founder and CEO, said can’t be learned in a classroom.
“You got to learn on your feet in a real-world, consequence-rich learning environment,” Bayer said.
Meg Baguso, Saxbys head of area operations manager, pours free sample drinks during the Saxbys grand opening Aug. 12 in the UTA Bookstore. The Saxbys at UTA is the first Texas location.
The program works with the College of Business to provide students with credit hours.
For the inaugural student CEO, Kiley Vaughan, a finance senior, that means being able to work while still tending to academic obligations.
Vaughan will receive two credit hours, one for the management internship the position is classified as and another for a management and studies course.
To earn the credits, Vaughan said she’ll have weekly check-ins in class to share what she’s learned during her time running the café.
“I’ll get credit through that, which is so amazing,” she said. “They make it fit into your degree. They are so here for your success, UTA and Saxbys. It’s wonderful.”
Tamara Brown, UTA provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs, said the academic integration appealed to her.
Saxbys employees make orders during the grand opening Aug. 12 in the UTA Bookstore. Saxbys offers a variety of coffee, sandwiches and pastries.
“If it’s a part of your degree, then it’s easier for you to do it, versus saying, ‘Oh, I’ve got to take all these classes and now find extra time to do something else.’ That’s hard,” Brown said.
By taking away the challenge of choosing between academics and work experience, Brown said she hopes to build a lasting program that will provide all Mavericks, not just those in the College of Business, with new resources.
“For other universities, student success might be an aspiration. For us, it’s intentional,” Brown said.
Saxbys has 36 learning cafés across universities nationwide, according to its website. The UTA café is the first Texas location and the first student-led experiential learning café in the state, according to a UTA press release.
Bayer said he chose UTA because the students are smart, humble and ambitious and often don’t come from privileged backgrounds where their families can get them jobs.
The students remind Bayer of himself, he said. He grew up with parents who didn’t get an education and who worked jobs they didn’t love.
Student CEO Kiley Vaughan speaks during the Saxbys grand opening Aug. 12 in the UTA Bookstore. Vaughan is the UTA café’s first student CEO.
“We built Saxbys and our Experiential Learning Platform to give those humble, hardworking, smart young people the opportunity to not have to worry about a network,” Bayer said.
By providing UTA students with resources, the university and Saxbys hope to prepare graduates to enter a volatile workforce.
According to a 2025 report from Cengage, an educational publishing and digital course materials company, only 30% of 2025 and 41% of 2024 graduates found jobs in their fields. A majority cited a lack of job-specific skills as their biggest gap when entering the workforce.
The UTA and Saxbys partnership could help students address the problems so many of their peers are facing.
“We really describe ourselves as an education company that’s disguised as a coffee company,” Bayer said. “Our mission is to make life better, and we do that by supporting and empowering the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs.”
News reporter Xioany Collazo contributed to this story.