http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-tns-bc-wrk-debtrelief-bizplus-20160125-story.html
They’ve used student debt relief as a recruitment tool for healthcare at many of my jobs, unfortunately I graduated so long ago it doesn’t help me.
Agree it is already huge in medical jobs. The ones I’ve seen are mostly described as a “bonus”–meaning it is actually not officially required to be used to repay loans, although that is what they encourage you to do.
Agreed…we know a physician…part of the private hospital compensation was payment of all the medical,school loans!
Who will pay off loan for graduates who don’t work in private industry sector? Should every sector have the incentive to pay off student debt too?
Look up the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. It allows teachers, employees at local, state and federal governments to get part of their federal backed loans forgiven. It also applied to non profit employees.
Right. Student Loan Forgiveness Program has been around a long time in different formats.
But this is not a tax free benefit, is it? One benefit of a 401k matching program is that it is a tax free event to the employee, a raise, so you contribute $$ and the employer matches it. Employer paid health insurance is a tax free (usually) benefit to the employee. If the employer pays $20k of student loans, I think the employee will see that $20k added to their W2.
All this would really be is the employer paying a bill for the employee. It I had a job at this employer, and had no student loans, I’d want that money in salary.
Yes, that is why it is a “bonus”. You do have to pay taxes on it. And it does go to new hires regardless of loans. (I am talking about the medical ones I know about.) It is a recruitment tool.
My public service loan cancellation (which had a different name in the 1970’s) had NO incime or tax implications for me…at all. I simply had to work in a priority school district…and a %age of my student loans were cancelled annually. I did this…and my loans were cancelled…all $1200 of them. College was cheaper back then!
^ Today that could be a book bill in a heavy class.
a company can just give you a bonus and you do with it as you please!
Yes, getting a signing bonus is pretty typical for graduating college kids in things like engineering.
I understand the public service debt forgiveness is tax free, but this is an article saying the ‘new, improved, exciting’ benefit is going to be the private employer paying student debt. It’s just a plain old signing bonus, or in some cases the employer paying $100/mo for the student loan. That $100 is going to be taxed. That signing bonus, whether paid to Sallie Mae or to the employee, is going to be taxed.
Not new. Not improved. Not even all that exciting.
Either of my kids would be thrilled to have an employer that gave them an extra bonus to pay their college loans. The tax burden would be far less than the actual loans.
Yes, my kids were happy to get signing bonuses, even if a tax on it may have been involved.
Of course everyone is happy to get money, whether a signing bonus or extra salary or matching 401k program. But to call it a ‘debt forgiveness benefit’ isn’t actually anything new or different. If the employer will only give the bonus if it is for student loan debt, then that’s different. If a new employee has no debt, it’s kind of unfair.
The public service loan forgiveness is different, as it is just for qualified student loan debt.