Under Secure Act 2.0, employers may soon be able to treat employees' student loan payments as “elective deferrals for the purposes of matching contributions” for their 401(k) or similar retirement plan.
Employers offering a 401(k), 403(b), SIMPLE IRA, or 457(b) plan retirement plan match can choose to match against an employee's student loan payments (instead of the traditional elective paycheck deferral). With student loan matching, employees with student loans may receive a retirement plan match even if they don’t contribute directly to their employer-sponsored retirement plans.