With student debt top of mind among loan holders and lawmakers, experts in the student loan industry recently convened in Washington, D.C. to discuss the state of student debt and what’s next.
Joining in the conversation was Mary Moreland, executive vice president, Human Resources, Abbott, who said employers play a key role in helping their people tackle student debt and save for the future.
It’s a topic Abbott knows well, having created a first-of-its-kind program that helps employees pay off their loans while also saving for retirement: Freedom 2 Save. Since the program’s 2018 launch, more than 2,500 employees have enrolled, and Abbott has contributed more than $5.5 million to participants’ 401(k)s.
“The employer space is complicated when it comes to student loans. Full stop,” Moreland said during the keynote panel at the recent Education Finance & Loan Symposium.
“Some companies give borrowers money directly. What we chose to do was create two doors into a 401(k) contribution. You can put 2% into your 401(k) or 2% toward your student loans and in both cases get the company’s 5% contribution.”
Implementing similar employee programs is expected to get easier in 2024 thanks to the new federal law SECURE 2.0 Act, a provision of which was inspired by Freedom 2 Save.
But what won’t change — at least not anytime soon — is the nation’s trillion-dollar student loan dilemma and the tens of millions of people faced with paying back that debt.
Read on for key takeaways from the symposium on the state of student loans:
Learn more about Abbott’s Freedom 2 Save program.
References
1 The White House. "Fact Sheet: President Biden Announces Student Loan Relief for Borrowers Who Need It Most." August 24, 2022.
2 Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “Total Household Debt Reaches $17.06 Trillion in Q2 2023; Credit Card Debt Exceeds $1 Trillion" https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/research/2023/20230808
This story was originally published on May 26, 2023, and updated on October 26, 2023.
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