Agencies continue to find the student loan reimbursement program to be an attractive recruiting and retention tool, especially in positions that are specialized and/or hard to fill such as in the science-technology-engineering-math fields, OPM said in its most recent assessment of the program.
The report showed that use of the program increased in 2014 after dropping—in both dollar terms and number of recipients—in each year since 2010, to 8,469 payments worth $58.7 million total. However, only five agencies account for 80 percent of the amount paid out: Justice, DoD, State, SEC and VA.
DoD for example told OPM that the program “has proven to be a significant recruitment tool for bringing interns into entry level training positions, and critical fields like engineering and nursing. Defense also reported that the program has proven very effective, as evidenced by the number of inquiries they have received at job fairs at colleges and universities.”
State said the program has helped hundreds of its employees pay off their student loan debt, SEC says it “has helped the agency to retain highly skilled staff,” and Interior said it “has been particularly helpful with filling mission-critical occupations which include petroleum engineers, environmental scientists, natural resource specialists, geophysicists, geologists, and biologists.”
The report said that few employees separate while under the three-year service agreement that is a condition for receiving the payments, which can be up to $10,000 per year for a maximum of $60,000.
