Beginning in January 2017, Penguin Random House will start a student loan repayment program.
Officially called the Penguin Random House Student Loan Repayment Assistance Program, the new employee benefit will repay up to $1,200 annually of student loan debt for employees who have been with the company for at least one year. The program has a $9,000 cap.
In his letter to employees announcing the program, PRH CEO Markus Dohle said the repayment effort is in keeping with the publisher’s belief “in doing our part to tackle broader societal challenges by starting within our own communities.” Dohle added that the program arose out of conversations he has had with PRH staff that showed that “student loan debt burdens a great deal of our colleagues at Penguin Random House, and increasingly, our future talent.”
PRH has signed with Gradifi to administer the program. Gradifi’s SLP Plan gives businesses the opportunity to pay down employees' student loan debt by contributing directly – through structured and secured channels – towards their employees' student loan principal on a monthly basis.
Dohle said the loan repayment program “represents another small step that we are taking together to live up to our mission, and perhaps more fundamentally, but just as important, to make Penguin Random House a happy, productive, and rewarding place to work.”
