US non-profit organisation, Teach for America is recovering from a national downturn as a wave of new recruits sign up due to the organisation’s student loan relief benefits, Bloomberg reported.
The educational organisation said that its incoming class for the year 2023–24 is approximately 40 per cent larger than last year, marking the highest increase since the financial crisis. The nonprofit employs college graduates to serve at schools in low-income neighbourhoods around the US.
Teach for America, which was founded in 1990, offers compensation ranging from $33,000 to $68,000 year, depending on the region and previous teaching experience. Although the low salaries make it difficult to attract candidates, Darin Lim Yankowitz, the organization’s vice president of people and performance, claims that applications increased this year in large part due to the unstable employment market and the program’s ability to reduce student loan payments.
“Economic incentive has always been important, but I think it’s of heightened importance right now,” Bloomberg quoted Yankowitz as saying. “People are seeing tons of layoffs — I think that heightens people’s anxiety about the debt burden because of the instability in the job market.”
According to the Federal Reserve, student loan debt adds up to around $1.77 trillion in the US, which has increased by three times since the Great Recession. After more than three years, a temporary halt on payments will come to an end in October, and millions of Americans will once again be responsible for paying their monthly expenses after the pandemic. That comes after a scheme by the Biden administration to let off as much as $20,000 per borrower was rejected by the Supreme Court.
The Segal AmeriCorps Education Award, which gives around $6,900 that can be used to pay down student loans after the two-year program is through, is one of the loan forgiveness programs for which Teach for America candidates are eligible. Additionally, some instructors are qualified for federal debt forbearance.
As per the Society for Human Resource Management, employers have increased their education perks in recent years as a strategy to draw in and keep top talent. But only a few businesses, offer assistance to employees with outstanding student loan debt.
“That gives them a better ability to compete for the best people instead of having to try to compete on salary,” Copeland, the institute’s director of wealth benefits research was quoted by Bloomberg as saying. “That really changes the dynamic.”
