Atlanta Legal Aid Society (ALAS) offers employees a loan repayment assistance program (LRAP) to help ALAS employees repay education loans. Participating employees pay a monthly $65 deductible and ALAS contributes up to $500 monthly in assistance towards outstanding student loans. All ALAS employees are eligible for this benefit but it may only be used to cover educational loans existing prior to starting employment with ALAS. Participants must take advantage of any available school loan repayment assistance programs and use ALAS' program to cover additional payments although they may secure a waiver if the school requires a longer employment commitment than ALAS' two and a half years. Employees are not forced to reimburse ALAS if they decide to leave prior to their minimum commitment and employees remain eligible for this benefit as long as they are employed by ALAS. ALAS' loan assistance is listed on employees W-2 forms and is taxable as income.
For programs interested in starting a LRAP program, ALAS suggests that programs start with a high deductible and low maximum monthly payout and adjust the figures to meet the programs' needs. This advice stems from experience as ALAS originally established their LRAP program in the late 1970s with monthly payments of $50 and a $35 deductible. Other options include allowing employees with long term loans that require low monthly payments to accelerate the loans to allow employees to reap greater benefit from the loan repayment program. Programs may also decide to use a sliding scale for reimbursements which tend to benefit employees with larger debt and lower income. ALAS believes their LRAP program is a powerful recruitment and retention tool that enables recent law graduates with large educational debt to work for ALAS who otherwise may not be able to do so.
Contact Information:
Steven Gottlieb Atlanta Legal Aid Society 151 Spring Street, N.W. Atlanta, GA 30303 Phone: (404) 614-3990 Fax: (404) 525-5710 Email
LSC:
America's Partner for Equal Justice 