Why Employers Should Be Paying Student Loans: Transform Your Workplace

Only 17% of U.S. employers offer student loan repayment assistance, which is straight up bananas. (Not to mention that some of those existing programs don’t offer any actual cash)

In a recent interview with Brandon Laws from Transform Your Workplace, Dolr CEO Naveed Iqbal shared why employers should be jumping on the repayment assistance train.

U.S. employers can contribute $5250 tax free, per year per employee. That means the employer doesn’t have to pay payroll taxes on that money, and the employee doesn’t have to pay income tax.
According to the CDC, financial stress is one of the leading causes of hospital visits. Naveed sometimes offers the tongue-in-cheek insight to employers that creating a student loan repayment assistance program could reduce their insurance premiums.
53% of people with student loans (likely someone’s employee) have experienced depression because of their loans.
94% of employees would stay with an employer longer if they offered student loan benefits.
98% of employees say they’d like to see their employer offer student loan benefits, whether they have student loans or not.
Companies like Dolr make enrollment and management simple and quick.

It just makes sense — financial sense, recruitment and retention sense, employee wellbeing sense.

Some of our favorite moments from the episode:

On student loan forgiveness

Naveed: We are putting together a study to look at how many people, given they've been making years of payments, have paid off the initial loan plus whatever interest they might have owed on it and still owe more.

Those would be — in my opinion, if we're gonna talk about forgiveness, those people have done their part, right? Come on. They've paid more than they borrowed. They paid it. They paid off the interest. They paid off more. That's a simplistic view of course, but I think if we're gonna consider the burden, that's really where the burden comes from. I keep doing this thing and I don't see results.

On the potential “unfairness” of offering student loan benefits

Naveed: When we survey teams and we ask everybody, ‘should this company offer student loan benefits?’

It doesn't matter whether they have loans or not. 98% of the time people say ‘yes.’ And then we have like a very small percentage that say no, and the remainder or whatever is left over they say, ‘I don't really care.’ So they're indifferent regardless. But the powerful thing is that like 98% of people are like, I understand how big of a problem this is for my coworkers. Help them. I’ll figure something else out.

Brandon: Yep. Absolutely. Well, especially if it means like we're gonna lose talent, if they have to go jump ship, because they can get $20 or $30 grand more by going to a different employer, if it means like I'm gonna lose one of my colleagues, who's like the best in terms of whatever specialized role that they're in.

Hell yeah. I want my employer to provide some sort of student loan repayment perk of some sort.

Naveed: Absolutely. And you know, this is something that — I love that. Attrition impacts the existing team as much as it impacts the employer. It's not only expensive in money terms.

It's expensive in time, in effort. Somebody has to pick up the slack. Somebody has to get to know somebody new. You lose those relationships. So you're absolutely right.

On asking for help (and getting it)

Naveed: One of the biggest problems we have, I think, as Americans is that we're very bad at asking for help.

Usually you like, unless you're in real, real big trouble, asking for help is almost embarrassing. But it doesn't have to be. You know, one thing that we found very surprising — and this is what our folks who use the platform tell us, is that they didn't realize that people actually were waiting to help.

They just didn't know how to ask or participate. And they wanted to make sure that their money is going directly to student loans. It's not like your grandma gives you a check and says deposit this within one week, you know?

Brandon: Absolutely. Well, what's interesting about what you're describing too, I mean, cause I've experienced it too growing up.

It's like you get like a birthday gift or your grandma gives you a hundred bucks, and you know, we have the intent, maybe she even says, ‘Hey, use this for your student loans,’ but you're like, ‘Well, I've got a check. It's cash. I'm gonna go to a concert instead.’ Versus, ‘Actually here's my Get Dolr app.’

I don't know if it's like a QR code or a username that they can scan, but they can make a payment directly to it. So that kind of cuts out any bad behavior.

Naveed: All the unnecessary stress. And then also you don't have anybody nagging you like, ‘Hey, did you pay down your student loans?’

It happens. They know where it's gone. You don't have to give up your whole life. They just know you have a student loan, and they've made a payment into it and they can trust that process.

Listen to the full episode of Transform Your Workplace or view the full transcript below.

Transform Your Workplace, Lifting the Student Loan Burden: Full Transcript

Brandon: Today's episode of Transform Your Workplace is brought to you by Xenium HR. Learn more about Xenium's complete HR plus payroll solution at XeniumHR.com.

Also a quick note that Xenium is running its annual What People Want From Work survey. I'll put a link in the show notes for you to sign up. It is absolutely free to participate, and you get a free report in the end. Xenium does all the work. All you need to do is send it out to your employees.

More information can be learned at the landing page for What People Want From Work. So look for that link in the show notes.

Are some of your employees struggling under the burden of student loan? Because in this episode of Transforming Your Workplace, I sit down with Naveed Iqbal. He's, the co-founder and CEO of Dolr, and we discuss how employers can help lift the burden of student loan repayment.

And according to Naveed, educational benefits that you can give your employees will help them greatly. And there's a lot of creative things that employers can do to help reduce the burden of student loan repayment. You're gonna learn a lot in this episode about this subject. And I know you're gonna get some great takeaways from this episode about how you can help your employees.

Make sure to connect with me on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, and connect with Naveed as well. And if you'd be so kind, if you listen to this podcast on apple podcast, we'd love for you to provide a written review — or even just a five star rating. That helps people learn more about this podcast, find the podcast, and learn how to transform the workplace.

So really appreciate your support. And for all of you who have been listening regularly for 350 plus episodes, we've got lots more coming. So thank you. Enjoy today's episode with Naveed Iqbal.

Naveed, it's a pleasure to have you on Transform Your Workplace. Thanks for coming on the show.

Naveed: Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Brandon: So we talk about student loans a lot in HR. Um, I think employers are starting to talk about it more too, but I think they're a drag on many young people.

When they're entering the workforce, they go to school, take out huge loans to get through their curriculum. They get this beautiful piece of paper that says they graduated with a degree, and they enter the workforce. And I'm curious — does that limit their career options? Does it open up options? I'm curious what you think in terms of just the burden of student loans?

Naveed: It definitely limits their options, right? So there a few things we know about what people say about how their student loans are inhibiting them. For instance, people are not starting families as early as they used to. People aren't buying homes. People aren't saving for emergencies. People aren't saving for their retirement, right?

It's impacting almost every aspect of their lives. And the only improvement you see (or at least you used to see) is that with an undergrad degree, typically you would have a better opportunity in the job market. These days, that's not so much the case, but the opportunity is still there. Lots of impacts, you know. Mental, even physical sometimes.

I'm a mathematician and data is everything that I think about. The CDC did a study a little while ago, and it was called the Social Determinants of Health. And in that study, they found that financial stress was one of the leading causes of hospital visits.

Brandon: Wow. I didn't know that.

Naveed: Mind blowing, right?

Crazy. And so when we speak about student loans, especially with an employer, sometimes tongue in cheek I say, ‘Look, you're gonna save money on insurance by offering a student loan benefit.’ It does make an impact. It's a big deal.

Brandon: Since you're a mathematician, I've gotta ask this question because I've heard people talk about it.

Okay, I've got student loans, I want to buy a house. I also need to contribute to a retirement plan. There's trade offs with every decision we make financially. You’re probably not a financial advisor, but you can give me some general answer, if that's appropriate. If I'm coming in as a younger employee, and I'm now receiving a paycheck from an employer, and I've got a decision to make, do I pay down my student loans fast? Do I invest in my 401k? Do I put it in a savings account to try to buy a home eventually for a down payment? There's so many options. What's the right move?

Naveed: You've really hit on something special here. And so not financial advice at all. Right. Uh, there is a mathematically optimized way to make sure that you're able to get.

Brandon: That's why I'm asking you this question. You’ve done the math. I know you have.

Naveed: Actually, there's a team. I wish I could take credit for it, but there's a team from Colorado that really went to town on this. And so they did an analysis and found that depending on how much debt you have, making payments for a certain number of years, and then switching to an income driven repayment plan, taking into account the tax liability that typically comes with that window between when you switch, like how many years you pay your loan. And then when you switch to an income driven repayment plan, can be the fastest and cheapest way out of debt.

Brandon: Financial education — is this happening in high school? College? I don't know if you keep a pulse on it. It's been years since I've been outta high school and college. It was limited in the time that I was in school. And I'm curious if people are coming out of secondary education, even graduate education, how are they from a financial literacy perspective?

Are they in good shape when they enter the workforce?

Naveed: Yes and no. It's my belief that we we've never had a generation that's so informed about their finances ever. Gen Z in particular. These people are very, very aware of how much money they have and what they intend to do with it.

However, there is a lack of knowledge around the specifics. For instance, the question that you just asked, how much do I put in a 401k? Do I max out my match? Do I pay more toward my student loans? There’s very little information or knowledge around how to optimize for that.

I think there's two things that can happen here. One is we can try to continue to overload people with information, or we can build tools that help them make those decisions. It's a combination I think is really the answer.

I always think about this — when you're buying a house for the first time. You're so unprepared.

Brandon: Oh yeah. It's a hell of a process.

Naveed: What do I do? What are the considerations? What are all these? This broker person that's giving me these options. I can read them. I understand English, but I don't know what they mean. Right? So there's data and then there's information.

And I think we present a lot of data, but not enough information.

Brandon: The student loan issue — is this a crisis right now? I hear about it a lot. And it just seems like people are taking out bigger and bigger loans. Is it a crisis? Would you consider it a crisis right now?

Naveed: It’s a crisis. So these are my own opinions.

It's a crisis for two reasons. The first is centered completely around what we just spoke about: information, data, people not having the understanding of what it means to make payments or to defer payment. One of the biggest issues with student loans is how interest can accrue without people understanding that that's what's happening.

And then it gets capitalized, which means it gets added to the amount you owe.

Brandon: So your balance is growing because you're accruing interest, even though you're deferring payments. Is that my understanding?

Naveed: That's right. And it’s not only that.

Brandon: Do, do you think people understand?

Naveed: I don’t think so.

Maybe they have some rough notion, or maybe they saw a disclaimer in some very long document that this was going to happen. I don't think they truly appreciate the level to which it impacts them because it's not only accruing. When it finishes accruing after deferment, it gets added to your principle.

So now you're paying interest on a larger amount. So a lot of people are struggling because of that. More on this soon. But we are putting together a study to look at how many people, given they've been making years of payments, have paid off the initial loan plus whatever interest they might have owed on it and still owe more.

Brandon: So we touched on this a little bit I think when we first opened, but what negative impacts exist for an employee trying to start their career? They've got the student loan debt hanging over them for years.

Maybe right now, for people who are coming out of college, they've been able to defer payments for a while. It's forgiven for a certain period of time. It's gonna start back up again. And what kind of impact does this have on their mental wellbeing, job prospects, long-term earning power, or just even starting their life?

I'm just curious what you've seen.

Naveed: 60% of people with student loans say that it impacts their mental health. 53% of people with student loans have experienced depression at some point because of their loans. So it's having a very negative impact. When you see younger people, they try to optimize for maximum compensation because that's the only way they see out of this burden of their student debt.

They’re like, ‘The more money I make, the quicker I can pay it off and live my life. And save for retirement and take that trip.’ The way we view our finances has changed. For instance, my parents would save for years so that they could take that dream vacation, and then they were old.

People these days want to experience life now. Before they get to some point in the future. And so balancing that, combined with their existing obligation, creates a lot of financial stress and pressure. Which is then translated to employers, right?

Because now employers are having to shell out these crazy compensation packages, look at other kinds of benefits or what else can I do for these people? There's definitely a trickle down relationship there.

Brandon: I feel like we're experiencing this now with the Great Resignation or Great Reshuffle, whatever people are calling it. They’re leaving for a paycheck. They might leave a very comfortable, balanced situation with their employer. Maybe they're very fulfilled, but they're gonna go grab money probably because they're experiencing what we just described as the obligations of debt.

Naveed: And that's typically not in the best interest of their career. It takes time to become really good at a thing. And when you're jumping around, you're not taking the time to become really good at something.

And everyone wants to become good at something. Everybody just wants to focus and get really good at that thing, but they feel these pressures that ‘the only way I'm gonna be able to succeed financially is if I leave this job that I enjoy and go take that other job that pays me more.’

Brandon: Yep, absolutely. I get it.

So let's turn to the employers at this point. What can they do to help at this point? I mean, you got a lot of HR listeners right now. You got a lot of leaders who might be in a position of making decisions on this. In terms of financial wellness, student loan repayment programs or perks, what can employers do? What have you seen?

Naveed: The most important thing that we see our customers do and that really succeed is to understand, to show people that you understand where they are. Recognizing the problem is a big first step. And in fact, usually most of the problem is in recognition and then helping people with that.

So the government is also taken notice of what's going on. So there are tax incentives associated with offering student loan benefits, or student loan repayment to your teams.

Increasing compensation by $5,000 a year means that the employer is not only shelling that out, taxes included. And the recipient doesn’t get that full money. They also have to pay taxes on it.

With student loan benefits, you're giving the person that full $5,000, and you get it tax deductible against up to $5,250 a year. So that's a big deal.

And framing the whole thing in terms of why you're doing this, because you understand what the person's going through and removing some of that burden, makes a big difference.

Engagement is something that we speak a lot about, like as employers, as people who work in HR. And it's so elusive. How do you measure engagement? How do you measure happiness? Well, you rely usually on proxies, like the study by the CDC and, you ask people ‘Are you happy?’

That actually works too. You find that when people are heard and they see that there is movement towards a problem that impacts them personally, everybody’s happier.

You know, one thing that's crazy is that some people we speak with, they say, ‘Not all of my team has student loans. So is this fair?’

That's a great question, right? That’s a fantastic question. I always respond with data. So 56% of employers today offer tuition resources of some variety.

Brandon: And I'm not going to college anymore. I'm not going to school. So that doesn't apply to me.

Naveed: There are all these wonderful tax benefits of doing that, but participation sucks, right?

Brandon: Most people who have already entered the workforce, they've already gone through their schooling.

Naveed: Or they maybe might not enroll because there's these other additional constraints tied to it. Like sign this contract that gives me your first child.

Brandon: You can have 'em.

Naveed: So when you ask people who are participating in those programs, I think 76% of them say that they would stay longer with an employer that offered them. And that's you asking participants, right?

If you look on the other side and you say, okay, if we offer student loan benefits — and you ask people who are not necessarily participating — would you stay at an employer that offers you loan benefits? That number goes to 94%. 94% of people that you ask (or actually SoFi asked) say that they would stay with an employer longer for offering student loan benefits. When we survey teams and we ask everybody, ‘should this company offer student loan benefits?’

Brandon: Yep. Absolutely. Well, especially if it means like we're gonna lose talent, if they have to go jump ship, because they can get $20 or $30 grand more by going to a different employer, if it means like I'm gonna lose one of my colleagues, who's like the best in terms of whatever specialized role that they're in.

Hell yeah. I want my employer to provide some sort of student loan repayment perk of some sort.

Naveed: Absolutely. And you know, this is something that — I love that. Attrition impacts the existing team as much as it impacts the employer. It's not only expensive in money terms.

It's expensive in time, in effort. Somebody has to pick up the slack. Somebody has to get to know somebody new. You lose those relationships. So you're absolutely right.

Brandon: If an employer — they are in touch with their employees. Maybe they decide the student loan repayment perk is something that they want to explore.

It seems very daunting. How do you go about implementing some sort of program that helps with it? Maybe overall, just give me an example of how employers are stepping in and helping, I don't even know logistically how it would work. So maybe explain that.

Naveed: So it, so it's definitely a financial wellness benefit, but before I give any more answers, I’ll very selfishly say, if you're considering it, go to getdolr.com.

This is really interesting that you ask this. Cause a lot of folks, they say, I want to do this thing. I don't understand how it works. Essentially, it comes up to this. It's an employer-sponsored program. You're going to need to allocate some cash that is disbursed at some frequency to your team’s student loans. How you disperse that cash, who is eligible, whether it’s governed by role or tenure — all of that stuff is included as part of a program.

So those are things that you should consider. Who's involved. What do they get? How does it change over time? You know, does it change overall? And then how motivated am I by the tax incentives?

Cause that's a big deal.

Brandon: What are the tax incentives?

Naveed: The CARES Act expanded the educational assistance portion of the tax code to include student loan repayment. So you can deduct up to $5250 per person per year.

Brandon: Per person. That's a good chunk of money.

Naveed: It's the same as tuition reimbursement with much higher participation.

Brandon: Yeah, that's really fascinating. So you've built a company that helps with this. Explain what Dolr does.

Naveed: We take a compositional approach to solving this student debt crisis. As we touched on a little bit earlier, one of the biggest problems with student loans is cash. People just don't have enough money to pay off their student loans in any reasonable amount of time.

And so we solve that cash problem. And we get them cash from a variety of different sources. One of those sources is an employer, and there's a variety of folks who work with us. People are sometimes surprised by the level of difference in the types of customers that we have. We have two-person teams, and we have several-hundred-person teams that are participating.

It's all on the same platform. Very easy.

And then just as an extension of that, we believe that education benefits everyone. And so everybody should play some role in paying for it. Some might argue that we already do that in our taxes. Morally, maybe.

I don't know. But if you wanna make the impact today, waiting for the government is usually not the best approach.

And so everybody has an incentive to participate. It's not a charity type thing. We work with brands, national brands — several hundred of them — that provide cash back directly to student loans when our members shop.

We help people form plans and automate habits so that they can get to that zero debt earlier. We mentioned this a little bit earlier — there's a lot of data. We condense it into very actionable information that somebody can say, ‘This is what I want to do, and this is how I'm gonna get there.’

And finally, we empower the person's community to participate in that repayment. So we've built the Venmo for student loans, so anybody can send money to anybody else's student loans.

Brandon: Super. How does it work from an individual participating? So if my employer opts in to Dolr, what happens from there?

Like I can opt in as an employee if I have student loans, and then what's the experience like from there?

Naveed: So it takes less than 10 minutes for an employer to get set up with Dolr.

Brandon: Really?

Naveed: Yeah. What’s the worst thing about a benefit?

Brandon: Oh, it takes forever to enroll.

Naveed: Enrollment, management, figuring out how it works. Because sometimes it could take six months, maybe more.

Brandon: Paperwork and enrollment is just a pain.

Naveed: We're like, nobody has time for that. So we've taken all of that unnecessary stuff away. You know, one of the things that we hear most consistently as feedback by people when employers finish signing up is, ‘Is that it?’

We’re like, ‘yes, sorry, you're underwhelmed, but your job is done now. Just enjoy’

So from an employer’s perspective, it's very easy. You just have to identify your team, your program, and the frequency of the payments you want to make. And we make all of that process very, very simple from the recipient’s perspective. Again, very simple.

All you have to do is enroll your student loans with Dolr, we will in validate that you are eligible for benefits from this employer.

Brandon: So it connects with actual financial institutions so you can verify that there's a loan outstanding.

Naveed: That's exactly right. All student loan services, private and federal in the country — we can connect you in 10 minutes too.

It's that simple, right? And then the rest is just creating delight and joy in what can be a terrible experience.

Brandon: So give me some insight as to what an employee might experience in something like this. And I'm sure there're other tools out there, but let's just home in on Dolr for now.

So if an employer signs up, say I've got a student loan, I sign up — does an employer just make regular payments to help pay down my student loans? Like on a regular — kind of like part of the paycheck, here's the benefit, much like health benefits or something? Like there would be this nice benefit goes into my Dolr account that pays down my student loan.

Am I getting that right?

Naveed: So far, a hundred percent.

Brandon: Okay. So that happens. Is there anything else on the employee side that takes place? You said something about a Venmo-like experience. Is there anything else that an employee can do to help, you know, keep paying down their loans?

Naveed: So as an employee, you have access to a variety of additional sources of cash that doesn’t cost the recipient anything.

You can shop at brands that are partnered with Dolr and get cash back to your student loans. It's as easy as a click and very soon, you're going to be able to swipe your card at those partners.

You can build a plan. One of my favorite things is what we call the What If Tool. Like what if I paid this much? And we show you by individual loan, how quickly, or how much longer it might take you to get to zero student debt.

The Venmo one is we make it very easy for you to ask for help. One of the biggest problems we have, I think, as Americans is that we're very bad at asking for help.

Brandon: Absolutely. Well, what's interesting about what you're describing too, I mean, cause I've experienced it too growing up.

I don't know if it's like a QR code or a username that they can scan, but they can make a payment directly to it. So that kind of cuts out any bad behavior.

Naveed: All the unnecessary stress. And then also you don't have anybody nagging you like, ‘Hey, did you pay down your student loans?’

It happens. They know where it's gone. You don't have to give up your whole life. They just know you have a student loan, and they've made a payment into it and they can trust that process.

Brandon: What I find interesting about your tool and I hope other people in this market — not necessarily just student loans, but financial wellness in general…

It sounds like you've built tools to help educate people along the process. You’ve got probably student loan calculators, like you just described. So I put a hundred bucks more towards my loan. What does that mean from a repayment perspective? And how much am I paying an interest over the long term?

Those are tools that'll help instill financial wellness and education inside of us. Do you find that others in your industry are doing something similar to help make it a more of a behavior shift?

Naveed: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are. Look, I hate using this term behavioral economics, because I think it has such a — in my opinion — a negative connotation.

It's almost like you're trying to manipulate somebody to act outside of their best interest. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks out there who build tools with that sort of purpose in mind. I have philosophical differences, but yes, there are folks out there who do actually do a good job — just like we do in terms of creating these tools that are actually helpful, that condense all of this data into information, because people are smart.

People are very smart, they just need to be presented with some information that they can act on. When you're trying to make a decision, you need a few things that you need to know. You don't need to go out there, spend three hours researching because you get exhausted. You don't make the decision.

So a lot of folks are thinking really well about what kind of tools to build in this area.

Brandon: That's great. From an employer standpoint — this audience is employers, and they're listening. How do I get involved in financial wellness? Student loan repayments is obviously one, but what other educational tools could employers provide their employees that might help them increase their financial wellbeing?

It's stressful. It's like you said, mental health has taken a toll because of people's financial wellbeing. What can employers do to get involved?

Naveed: I think giving folks access to expertise is a big deal. Sometimes I might not be able to afford a full on financial advisor, might not even need one.

But I might have a question that that person could answer in five minutes — that might take me a long time to do. There's a lot to be said about having resources that people might read. It's very important to make sure that the person is reading the information that is relevant to them.

So for instance, if you think about a 401k, there's so much to that 401k that is not applicable to everyone. So, if it was my case, I'm only interested in this part. I should be able to just get information about that part and not get confused and worried about what else is happening.

I think when making these kinds of choices it’s important how the information is presented to their team, how it’s personalized.

Brandon: Yeah. And what's interesting about something you said earlier — I homed in on it because I am a firm believer that we shouldn't be sitting around waiting for the government to help make choices for us.

And I think employers are in a pretty unique opportunity to help provide educational resources so people can make decisions for themselves that are unique to their situation. And I think we just don't have enough of that. Do you agree with that? Do you think employers are a really good position to provide very good financial educational resources that employees could benefit from greatly?

Naveed: A hundred percent. They're in a fantastic position. And some in fact, I would argue that they have an obligation to provide helpful resources because at the end of the day, they're providing the money that this person's gonna spend somehow.

And so they want to make sure the person has the information that they need to make the appropriate decisions for whatever their life goals are.

Brandon: Absolutely. I love it. Well, this has been a really fun conversation. We haven't really touched on financial wellness in general, and I know student loan repayment has been a big trend.

So thanks for coming on the show. Where can people learn more about you and Dolr? Connect with you. Anything that you want to share with people?

Naveed: Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. I love new connections. I love meeting new people to learn about Dolr. Just go to getdolr.com, G E T D O L R.com.

And you know, all of the things we do are easy to find over there. Our blog is a fantastic resource. It contains a lot of the information that we've just discussed today, so that could also be helpful.

Brandon: My guest today has been Naveed Iqbal. Naveed, hanks for being part of Transforming Your Workplace.

Naveed: It’s been a pleasure, so much fun. Thank you, Brandon.