Employer student loan contributions are a type of employee benefit in the United States. With this benefit, employers pay back

student loan A student loan is a type of loan designed to help students pay for post-secondary education and the associated fees, such as tuition, books and supplies, and living expenses. It may differ from other types of loans in the fact that the interest ...

s on behalf of employees, at certain amount per month as decided by the employer. Companies are using this benefit as a way to attract and retain employees, especially millennial workers. This benefit has grown as education debt has increased. According to the

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

, student debt has nearly tripled since the early 1990s and averaged $35,000 in 2015. Only about 3% of companies currently offer employer student loan contributions, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resources Management from June 2015. Prominent companies that have announced this benefit include

Fidelity Investments Fidelity Investments, formerly known as Fidelity Management & Research (FMR), owned by FMR LLC and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, provides financial services. Established in 1946, the company is one of the largest asset managers in the ...

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, alon ...

, Natixis Global Asset Management, Kronos,

NVIDIA Nvidia Corporation ( ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and incorporated in Delaware. Founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang (president and CEO), Chris Malachowsky, and Curti ...

and law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Companies may work with a vendor to administer these payments. Employer student loan contributions used to be taxable as regular income in the U.S. According to the

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, is a $2.2trillion Stimulus (economics), economic stimulus bill passed by the 116th United States Congress, 116th U.S. Congress and signed into law by Presiden ...

, payments of student loan principal and interest by an employer to either an employee or a

lender A creditor or lender is a party (e.g., person, organization, company, or government) that has a claim on the services of a second party. It is a person or institution to whom money is owed. The first party, in general, has provided some property ...

is not taxable to the employee if paid on or before December 31, 2020.Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Section 2206
. ''United States Congress''.

govtrack GovTrack.us is a website developed by then-student Joshua Tauberer. It is based in Washington, D.C., and was launched as a hobby. It enables its users to track the bills and members of the United States Congress. Users can add trackers to certain ...

. March 27, 2020.

References

{{reflist Employee benefits Employers