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The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has announced a new pricing system for its education programs, with a varying price structure based on country. SCA priced its educational programs based on the economic realities of people living in different countries.
The SCA split countries into five groups based on data from the International Monetary Fund and the Purchasing Power Parity per Capita Index. Coffee professionals in Group 1, which includes countries like Burundi, Myanmar, and Yemen, will pay the least—the press release gives the example of $8 for a course or $115 for a yearly Authorized SCA Trainer (AST) license. By comparison, those in Group 5, which includes Denmark, Hong Kong, and the United States, will pay the most—$50 for a course and $975 for the AST license.
According to a press release, the goal of the new model is “to make learning more accessible, affordable, and equitable for coffee professionals everywhere.” Both individual SCA course fees and yearly license fees for trainers will be part of the new pricing structure, which will go into effect later this year, as will the new Evolved Q program. The organization said that trainers and educators who run their SCA-certified classes will continue to set their own rates.
“Education serves as the foundation for careers, leadership, and innovation throughout the value chain,” said SCA CEO Yannis Apostolopoulos. “After years of dedicated work, we are proud to introduce a new model designed to make our education more accessible and widely available.”
In the past few weeks, the SCA has made several industry-changing announcements. During the Expo trade show in late April, the SCA announced an “historic partnership with the Coffee Quality Institute to take over management of the Q Grader program beginning in October 2025.
The SCA has also announced a series of deals with various producing countries to implement its new Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) cupping standards. First, they made agreements with the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation and the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association to use the CVA as their quality evaluative tool.
And on Friday, during the World of Coffee trade show in Jakarta, the SCA announced an agreement with the Specialty Coffee Association of Indonesia to implement the CVA cupping standards “as the official protocol for evaluating Indonesian specialty coffees.”
