Live Nation to help employees pay off student loans
LOS ANGELES — Add Live Nation and its nearly 9,000 employees to the growing list of companies offering to help pay down student debt as an employee perk.
Live Nation Entertainment is working with tech startup Tuition.io (tuition I owe, get it?) to administer the program, which Tuition.io also does for Staples, Fidelity Investments and Hewlett-Packard.
“Two years ago, no one heard about companies doing this,” says Tuition.io CEO Scott Thompson. “Now it’s remarkable all the inbound requests we get for more information and demos. It’s a space that’s become white hot.”
With Santa Monica-based Tuition.io, the company automatically directs payments to the lender.
With student debt amounting to $1.4 trillion, helping students pay off their loans is just good business in helping attract Millennials to firms, says Nadia Rawlinson, Chief Human Resource Officer for Live Nation Entertainment, a major concert promoter and ticket seller.
“A lot of companies do cool stuff like free lunches or bring your parents to work day, which are all great,” she says, “But we want to make sure we’re doing things that are substantive.”
Live Nation is matching employee contributions of up to $100 monthly, or $1,200 a year, up to $6,000. (Employees who have been with the firm for at least 6 months qualify.)
Firms choose different amounts to pay. Fidelity, for instance, will match up to $2,000 per year, up to $10,000 total, the same as health care giant Aetna.
Tuition competes with First Republic Bank's Gradifi, which works with high-profile clients like PriceWaterhouseCooper and First Republic in administering student debt contributions.
The average personal student debt is $35,000, Rawlinson notes, so the Live Nation employees would still have debt to contend with, even after the match, which, under current terms, could erase around $12,000.
(For the employee with extra cash, Live Nation is also offering a matching 401K program to help them plan for retirement.)
Companies offering student debt assist are small — just about 3% of corporate America, notes Rawlinson, but "it's new, it's innovative and it gets out at helping employees realize their life goals, not just professional goals."
Rawlinson joined USA TODAY to talk about the new program, and why companies like Live Nation are offering to help Millennials pay down their debt on a #TalkingTech podcast.
Click the link below to listen.
Follow USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham on Twitter, @jeffersongraham and subscribe to the daily #TalkingTech podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.