MightyRecruiterRecruiting College Hires and Tuition Forgiveness Programs
Throughout the average academic career, the importance of earning a college degree is drilled into a student’s head time and time again. However, one point that’s often overlooked in this preparation is being able to pay for one’s studies. Yet given all the rides on a degree, students are wisely willing to assume debt in order to pursue opportunities in higher education. That is, at least until they see the final bill. The Institute for College Access and Success reports that those leaving college today with their degrees in hand also carry with them an average of $28,950 in debt. This makes turning your organization’s focus towards recruiting college hires and tuition forgiveness programs all the more important.
Why Because of two facts that could potentially be troubling for your company. First, it’s reported that seven out of every 10 recent college graduates incur this level of debt. This may prompt many of them to overlook good long-term career opportunities for short-term jobs that pay more so they can get rid of their debt faster. Second, the average level of college graduate debt has shown in recent years to be increasing at twice the rate of inflation. Thus, if you’re hoping that this potential problem is going to get better, you’re in for further disappointment.
Why Offer Tuition Forgiveness
However, forward thinking companies across the U.S. have taken steps to counter this issue by allocating increased resources towards both recruiting college hires and tuition forgiveness programs. Such efforts have proven to be mutually beneficial for both the businesses that offer them and the recently-graduated employees that they bring on. New hires are able to be more selective about the career options that they pursue rather than only searching for high-paying jobs. The businesses that help identify or offer these programs benefit from increased employee loyalty and higher retention rates.
Identifying Federal and State Programs
So where should you start in your efforts to develop new standards for recruiting college hires and tuition forgiveness programs It’s simple: look to the government. The idea of tuition forgiveness began there at the federal level and then slowly trickled down to the states. Currently, both federal and state programs exist that allow for either complete or partial tuition forgiveness for the following types of workers:
-Lawyers
-Doctors
-Teachers
-Public servants
The base requirement for earning tuition forgiveness is to work in one of these functions for a certain number of years. Such professionals will typically already have the knowledge that such assistance is available to them. However, few may not be familiar with the steps on how to achieve it. If you routinely hire such workers, then you may be able to offer assistance in attaining tuition relief as a hiring incentive.
If you happen to operate outside of the aforementioned industries, not to worry; there still are ways for you to help new hires find tuition assistance opportunities. Partial forgiveness programs are available to help lower a person’s monthly loan payments in the immediate and eventually forgive the remaining balance. If you are serious about bolstering both recruiting college hires and tuition forgiveness programs, then familiarizing yourself and your hiring staff on these options in order to recommend them to prospective employees is a must.
Offering Tuition Assistance in Your Own
Many professional organizations in your same position are increasingly partnering with colleges and universities to identify job candidates while they are still in school. This way, they’re able to offer tuition assistance through either an annual stipend or through reimbursement. The main benefits of this model are two-fold: you identify candidates in degree programs relevant to your industry and snap them up before your competitors can, and these employees are more prepared to assume greater responsibilities within your company earlier in their careers. Again, the typical requirement for offering tuition assistance in this manner is that these employees work for your company for a pre-determined amount of time.
While this method of improving your recruiting college hires and tuition assistance programs works for those still in school, what about those who are done and are now looking to enter the workforce Rather than increasing your entry-level pay scale, consider offering new employees a signing bonus. This allows you to entice them to your organization through the promise of student loan assistance without affecting your overall payroll structure.
No one is saying that finding the right balance between recruiting college hires and tuition forgiveness programs is easy. However, it can be made more so by utilizing the resources offered through Mighty Recruiter. Information from Mighty Recruiter’s blogs, advice columns, and other online resources and tools will help you to identify the ideal tuition reimbursement model for your organization, as well as provide you with the ideas needed to implement it.