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Wherever you go, there'south a adept chance that the people around you lot have educatee loan debt. Most recent graduates have $35,000 in debt to pay off — whether information technology'south to Uncle Sam or private lenders. But a Boston startup called Gradifi wants your boss to help pes the bill.

Gradifi's founder and CEO Tim DeMello sees the $1.iii trillion student loan debt as everyone's trouble.

"And then I set out to create a model to help solve this problem, whereas you take people contribute and pay off students loans on behalf of the individual," says DeMello.

The Student Loan Paydown plan, or SLP, works like this: every calendar month, the employer contributes to the workers' pupil loans. The company decides how much they're going to put toward it — whether information technology's $50, $100, or even $250 per calendar month.

"And so the benefit is if you lot take a $35,000 loan, with interest that's $42,000 over 10 years. This takes 2.5 years or 25 per centum off the loans. And so someone who is 22 who was originally in debt till they're 32 will have it paid off when they're 29," says DeMello.

And then what's in information technology for the employer?

"People are looking at how do nosotros retain and concenter millennials—this is the number 1 issue they are dealing with," DeMello explains. "Turnover and recruiting are large expenses, referral fees, recruiting fees are all big expense, so if they can relieve the turnover on their company, information technology pays for themselves."

While many employers try to lure workers with attractive benefits, like 401ks, companies are finding that most recent graduates don't really care about saving for retirement yet.

"[Employers] hear about it all the time. They really hear about, 'I actually love the 401k plan but retirement is not my trouble at age 23. It's just not my problem. My trouble is my student loans, and it's eating all my discretionary money,'" says DeMello.

Related: Can Employee Tuition Benefits Boost Graduation Rates?

That'southward the reason Pricewaterhouse Coopers wanted to get involved. A year ago, the huge consulting firm partnered up with Gradifi to examination out the program. Vice Chairman Rob Gittings says providing this kind of do good to employees gives them a competitive edge.

"It's a tough marketplace for the top talent, and we are a business organisation that really relies on the intelligence and the manufacture and the thoughtfulness and the insights of our people. So our ability to attract the best talent and the benefits is one of the things that folks look at," says Gittings.

And if more than companies similar PWC take on educatee debt, they're potentially setting the stage for how recruits shop around.

"If I'm coming out of school and I have $35,000 in student loans and I have a company that can help with $x,000 of that, I retrieve a lot of people are going to see which companies have it – it is a differentiator," says Gittings.

And it looks like a lot of other businesses come across it that way, too.

Gradifi has a waiting listing of over 100 companies across the country that are interested in signing up for the SLP plan.

"The range is a lot wider than what I thought information technology was going to exist. I thought information technology was going to be pretty much focused on financial, legal, tech," says DeMello. "Every day we hear from a new group calling that says, 'Tin you do this for us?'"

This story appears courtesy WGBH'due south On Campus blog. Reproduction is not permitted.

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