Staples jumps on hot employer trend: paying student loans
Top-performing, full-time Staples employees can now get $100 a month toward their student loan payments.
Top-performing, full-time Staples employees can now get $100 a month toward their student loan payments.
Top-performing, full-time Staples employees can now get $100 a month, up to $3,600 over聽36 months, toward their student loan payments.
Sounds great, right? There鈥檚 more good news: Staples is hiring.
The company this week announced the program, which is open to existing staff and new hires who have at least one student loan. It鈥檚 the first major retailer to offer a student loan repayment program for employees. PricewaterhouseCoopers, Fidelity Investments and Aetna provide similar perks. So do many companies in the student loan refinancing industry, including CommonBond and SoFi.
The company announced Tuesday that the Staples program will initially be for employees who 鈥渉ave been identified as high potential and top performers鈥� but will later expand to help more employees, according to a聽press release. Employees can qualify if they鈥檙e attending an accredited school or if they鈥檝e already received an accredited degree. Staples could not be reached for comment聽about the number of employees who will receive the benefit.
Staples will make monthly payments to its employees鈥� student loan servicers through Tuition.io, a company that powers student loan repayment programs for employers.
How to make the most of the benefit
Only about 4%聽of employers offer a student loan repayment benefit, according to a June聽report聽by the Society for Human Resource Management. But the list continues to grow, with Staples as the latest company to offer repayment help. If you鈥檙e lucky enough to receive this perk from Staples or another employer, maximize it. Here鈥檚 how:
KEEP PAYING EVERY MONTH
It鈥檚 probably tempting to count your student loan benefit as extra Benjamins in your pocket. But you鈥檒l get more mileage from the perk if you continue to make your minimum monthly loan payments in addition to the $100 a month from Staples. Call your federal loan servicer or private lender and ask it聽to apply that extra hundred bucks to your loan principal; that will help shrink your balance faster.
THINK ABOUT REFINANCING
Your monthly student loan payment and the $100 from Staples can go even further if you refinance your debt.聽Refinancing can lower your interest rate, which means you鈥檒l owe less in the long run.
Think carefully before you refinance federal loans, though, as you鈥檒l lose valuable benefits, including access to income-driven repayment plans and federal forgiveness programs.
To qualify for refinancing, you typically need a large enough income to comfortably cover your financial obligations and a good credit score or a creditworthy co-signer. If you don鈥檛 know your score, you can聽look it up here.
Teddy Nykiel is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email:聽teddy@nerdwallet.com. Twitter:聽@teddynykiel.
This story originally appeared on NerdWallet.