Benefits pros have long questioned the value of providing tuition-assistance.
After all, won’t employees’ new degrees just make them more likely to leave for greener salary pastures?
Turns out, the opposite is true.
A landmark study recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds:
- among employees participating in these benefit plans, only 33% leave the employer within five years
- these employees typically rate job satisfaction as a bigger priority than salary, and
- the jump in long-term productivity usually makes the investment in the employee’s education pay for itself.
By comparison, eligible employees who don’t participate in education benefits are nearly twice as likely to leave within five years (60%).
The study also found that big employers — those with 1,000 or more employees — remain more likely than small companies to offer some form of educational assistance.
On the flip side, the dollar-for-dollar return on investment is often better for smaller employers.
