Employers can help with student loan debt?

One in 4 Americans have student loan debt, the total of which reached $1.5 trillion in 2018. If a newly proposed law entitled the Employer Participation in Repayment Act (H.R. 1043) is enacted, employers would be able to pay up to $5,250 annually toward an employee’s student loan debt. (There’s a companion bill in the Senate—S. 460). This amount would be tax free to employees (the same tax-free amount that limits education assistance); employers could deduct the payment. The measure has bi-partisan support so it would move ahead in Congress.