Upskill your team with tuition reimbursement.

Companies that offer tuition assistance will establish a 127 benefit plan that typically outlines who can claim tuition assistance, how much they can claim, and the requirements for participating in the program. Once the program is established, employees interested in using either their tuition assistance or tuition reimbursement benefit will generally need to follow application guidelines provided by each company in order to claim the benefit.

Highway helps companies create their 127 benefit plans and manages all aspects of the application and approval processes for the tuition reimbursement benefit.

Employer student loan repayments (SLR) help improve employees' financial wellness by helping them pay back existing qualified student loans (including refinanced loans). This helps employees reduce their debt burdens and a significant source of financial stress.

Tuition reimbursement can help employees develop or upskill by covering part or all of the cost of continued education.

Both Tuition Reimbursement and Student Loan Repayment are great educational assistance benefits that companies can offer to attract and retain top talent. Check out our post on educational assistance benefits to learn more about tuition reimbursement vs student loan repayment.

Tuition reimbursement is a great complement to a student loan repayment benefit and vice versa.

Companies can offer tuition reimbursement and a student loan repayment as tax-free benefits as long as the total amount received by an employee, across all the benefits that qualify as “educational assistance,” does NOT exceed $5,250 per employee per year. If an employee receives more that $5,250 per year across both benefits, the excess benefit amount will be subject to income and payroll taxes.

Companies are increasingly offering student loan repayments along with tuition reimbursement as SLR tends to have a higher adoption rate than tuition reimbursement programs. Offering both together can have a higher impact on employees' financial wellness, attraction, and retention.

Highway makes it easy to track both benefits in our platform. Schedule a demo with our team to learn more.

Depending on the rules set forth in your company's written 127 plan, tuition reimbursement may be able to be used to cover an employee's student loans. However, most companies that want to offer student loan assistance under Section 127, prefer to offer a separate student loan repayment benefit as (1) it's easy to add and manage, especially with Highway, and (2) they can ensure that their employer contributions go directly to employees' student loans.

Our team at Highway Benefits can help you amend an existing tuition assistance benefit to cover student loan repayments and ensure your benefit is tax-compliant. Schedule a call with our team to review your benefit plan.