{"id":14569,"date":"2019-03-27T17:02:29","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T17:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/goodly-replaces-lame-office-perks-with-student-loan-repayment.html"},"modified":"2019-03-27T17:02:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T17:02:29","slug":"goodly-replaces-lame-office-perks-with-student-loan-repayment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/goodly-replaces-lame-office-perks-with-student-loan-repayment.html","title":{"rendered":"Goodly replaces lame office perks with student loan repayment"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are better employee perks than a ping-pong table. 70 percent of Americans graduate college with student loan debt. That\u2019s 45 million people who owe $1.6 trillion. So when employers use\u00a0Goodly<\/a> to offer $100 per month in student loan payback for a $6 fee, talent sticks around. The startup found 86 percent of employees said they\u2019d stay with a company for at least five years if their employer helped pay down their student loans. Yet employers break even if workers stay just two extra months, and get a 5X return if they stay an extra year since it costs so much to hire and train replacement staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, Y Combinator-backed Goodly has raised a $1.3 million seed round led by Norwest. The startup hopes capitalize on corporate America waking up to student loan payback as a benefit, which is expected grow from being offered by 4 percent of companies today to 32 percent by 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Goodly co-founder and CEO Greg Poulin knows the student loan crisis personally. \u201cWhen I was in school, my father passed away very unexpectedly due to a heart attack. I had to borrow $80,000 to for college at Dartmouth\u201d he tells me. His monthly payment is now $900. The stress that debt creates can poison the rest of life. He says 21 percent of employees with student loan debt have delayed marriage, 28 percent have put off starting a family, and 1 out of 8 divorces is now directly attributed to student loan debt. \u201c<\/span>I\u2019ve seen first-hand how challenging it is for employees to save for retirement or start a family\u201d when they\u2019re strapped with debt, Poulin says.<\/p>\n

He met his co-founder and CTO Hemant Verma when they started working at Zenefits\u2019 founder Parker Conrad\u2019s new employee onboarding startup Rippling<\/a> in 2017. That tought them how simplifying the benefits sign-up process could become its own business. Typically it requires that benefits be integrated with a company\u2019s financial software like payroll and be set up with proper provisioning access. It\u2019s enough of a chore that companies don\u2019t go to the trouble of offering student loan repayment.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Poulin and Hemant started Goodly to create a \u201cset it and forget it\u201d system that automates everything. They charge $6 per month per participating employee and typically see adoption by 30 percent to 40 percent of employees. Rather than help with their monthly payment that includes interest, Goodly clients pay down their employees\u2019 core debt so they can escape more quickly. Employees get a dashboard where they can track their debt and all of the contributions their company has made. Goodly hasn\u2019t had a single customer churn since launch, demonstrating how badly employers want to keep job-hopping talent in their roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that our people put off contributing to their 401Ks and buying a house because of their student loan debt. We thought that offering a Student Loan Repayment Benefit would be a great low-cost and high-impact benefit to attract and retain talent while alleviating some of the stress and the financial burden on our employees.\u201d says Kim Alessi, an HR Generalist.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Goodly\u2019s founders and first employees<\/p>\n

The business opportunity here is relatively young but there are a few competitors. Boston-based Gratify was acquired by First Republic, which Santa Monica\u2019s Tuition.io pivoted to offering student loan benefits. But Goodly\u2019s connection to so many potential clients plus its new funding could help it make student loan repayment a ubiquitous perk. Along with Norwest and YC, the funding comes from ACE Company, Arab Angel, Zeno Ventures, and angel investors including Optimizely\u2019s Pete Koomen, DreamHost\u2019s Josh Jones, ShipStation\u2019s Jason Hodges, Fairy\u2019s Avlok Kohli, and Telly\u2019s Mo Al Adham.<\/p>\n

Beyond improving talent retention, Goodly<\/a> may also help erase some of the systematic discrimination against minorities in our country. Women hold 66 percent of all student loan debt, black and Latinx Americans have 31 percent more student debt than their peers, and LGBTQ borrowers owe $16,000 more than an average member of the population. Convincing employers to address student loan debt could give everyone more freedom of choice when it comes to what they work on and how they live their lives.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/kySJl8Nc9j8\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are better employee perks than a ping-pong table. 70 percent of Americans graduate college with student loan debt. That\u2019s 45 million people who owe $1.6 trillion. So when employers <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-14569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t