A pedestrian walks past a sign for health insurer Aetna Inc., at the company headquarters in Hartford, Conn. (Photo: AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File) 
 
 Aetna employees with student debt are about to get up to a $10,000 break. The company announced Wednesday that it will help pay down their loans, joining a small group of pioneers that started the trend to attract and retain talent by tackling a widespread source of financial distress. 
 
 Starting in 2017, the health care giant’s 50,000 full-time employees will qualify for matching loan payments of up to $2,000 per year and a total of $10,000 per person. Part-timers also will benefit, with half of the cap. Employees need to have earned undergrad or graduate degrees from accredited institutions within the last three years. 
 
 “By helping ease their financial burden, our employees can better focus on our mission of building a healthier world,” said Mark Bertolini, chairman and CEO of Aetna. 
 
 Aetna is the latest to join the 3% to 4% of all U.S. companies that contribute to employees’ student debt payments, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Other firms include Nvidia, a technology company based in the Silicon Valley, Memorial Hermann Health System in Texas and Natixis Global Asset Management in Boston. 
 
 The trend is poised to take off among industries facing heated competition for talent, such as finance, technology and retail, as 71% of college graduates this year carry student loan and the country has amassed $1.3 trillion of student debt, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a May report. 
 
 Before Aetna, Fidelity and PricewaterhouseCoopers launched their own student loan matching programs. In September 2015, PwC offered to pay $1,200 a year, or a total of $10,000, per employee to alleviate the burden of student loans on the firm’s associates and senior associates with one to six years of working experience. That covers about 22,000 U.S. employees, 45% of its U.S. workforce. 
 
 The program is especially appealing to Millennials, who make up 80% of the PwC workforce, the company says. 
 
 “As a firm that recruits more than 11,000 new hires off campus each year, this is an opportunity to differentiate ourselves with a key talent group — Millennials — and provide a meaningful way to help reduce their debt,” said Tom Codd, vice chairman and U.S. human capital leader at the auditing and consulting company, in a press release announcing the program. 
 
 More than 6,300 PwC employees have enrolled in the program. 
 
 In January, Fidelity launched its student loan assistance program, providing employees who have more than six months of tenure $2,000 a year to pay off their student debt, up to $10,000 per person. Almost 6,000 employees have participated. 
 
 The program aligns with the asset management firm’s mission to help people save for the future, as student debt can delay employees’ next step in life, said Jennifer Hanson, head of associate experience and benefits. Fifty percent of people polled say they have held back buying a home because of student loans and 49% say they would delay engagement or marriage because of their debt, according to research by EdAssist, which will help Aetna implement the student loan matching program. 
 
 Student loan assistant programs generally come with hefty price tags. Fidelity already paid millions of dollars so its program participants will save $8.5 million in the long run, with compound interest. But Hanson said the opportunity to attract and retain top talent is worth it. 
 
 While the programs are attractive to Millennials, they aren't necessarily exclusive to younger workers. The Aetna program will also apply to employees who go back and get a new degree, said Kay Mooney vice president of employee benefits. 
 
 "We do believe a successful company does more than turning a profit," she said. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2bgB71e ||||| Aetna Student Loan Repayment Program Fact Sheet 
 
 On August 10, 2016, Aetna Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini announced a Student Loan Repayment Program that will provide some financial relief for employees who graduated since December 1, 2013. This follows the announcement in 2015 of two other programs that improved financial security for thousands of workers by improving wages and health care benefits. 
 
 Aetna will match employees’ U.S.-based student loan payments up to $2,000 per year for a lifetime maximum of up to $10,000 for qualifying loans. 
 
 All full- and part-time (20 hours a week or more) active Aetna employees are eligible for the program. 
 
 For part-time employees, Aetna will match up to $1,000 a year with a lifetime maximum of $5,000. 
 
 To qualify, an employee must have earned his or her U.S.-based undergraduate (including associate) or graduate degree from an accredited institution within 3 years of applying for the program. 
 
 The student loan repayment program begins in January 2017. 
 
 Aetna estimates up to 4,000 employees have received degrees since December 2013 and could be eligible. 
 
 Aetna will make payments directly to the loan servicer. 
 
 Aetna already offers a tuition assistance program that pays 80 percent of the cost of undergraduate or graduate courses, and employees may benefit from both programs. 
 
 The Student Loan Repayment Program includes expert, no-cost education loan repayment guidance sessions through Aetna’s tuition assistance vendor, EdAssist. 
 
 As a health care company with a vision of building a healthier world, Aetna takes a holistic view of employee well-being – one that includes physical, mental, social, and financial health. These programs help make our employees healthier, happier and more productive; improve the experience we provide to our customers; and make our company stronger.
– Competition for talented university graduates appears to be heating up: Health care giant Aetna has become the latest big company trying to woo young workers by offering to help them pay off their mountains of student debt, USA Today reports. Full-time employees who have earned degrees within the last three years will be granted up to $2,000 a year in matching loan payments, with a cap of $10,000, and part-time employees who work at least 20 hours a week will get up to $1,000 with a cap of $5,000, the company says. "By helping ease their financial burden, our employees can better focus on our mission of building a healthier world," says CEO Mark Bertolini. Around 4,000 employees could be eligible for the program, which will begin payments at the beginning of 2017, according to a fact sheet that says the company wants to boost employee well-being by focusing on their "physical, mental, social, and financial health." USA Today notes that a handful of financial and tech firms competing for workers have started similar loan matching payment programs for employees, but experts estimate that firms with such programs make up only 3% to 4% of US companies. (This woman needs to pay off her $18,000 student debt before she can become a nun.)