Your employees have student loans. What many don't have is clarity about what to do with them.
Repayment plans, forgiveness, income recertification, taxes, and career decisions intersect in ways few borrowers know how to evaluate.
And the wrong decision can have financial consequences that last for years.
Descifra turns that complexity into a personalized strategy and clear action plan.
Explore Descifra for Your OrganizationStudent debt is an employee issue at scale.
Millions of Americans carry student debt, including employees across income levels, professions, and stages of their careers.
of the health care employees represented in Fidelity's dataset had student debt.
average balance and $837 average monthly payment: the highest among the industries represented in that dataset.
Fidelity Investments, 2024 State of Student Debt. Based on users of Fidelity's Student Debt Tool — more than 100,000 users who reported loan information, representing approximately 8,000 companies, as of August 26, 2024 — and does not constitute a nationally representative estimate of all health care employees. AAMC, FIRST analysis of the 2024 Graduation Questionnaire; education debt figures include premedical and medical school debt.
Every major financial decision has infrastructure behind it. Student loans are often the exception.
Student loan decisions rarely happen in isolation.
A change in income can affect a payment.
A tax filing decision can affect income-driven repayment.
Family size can matter.
A career move can change the value of forgiveness.
The timing of an income recertification can change the outcome.
Yet employees are often left to connect those decisions on their own.
The challenge isn't access to information. It's knowing what to do with it.
A calculator can do the math. The challenge is knowing which numbers matter for that person.
Descifra evaluates them together, because changing one can change the strategy.
For some borrowers, the difference between strategies can amount to tens of thousands of dollars — and in certain cases, hundreds of thousands — over time.
Some decisions can be estimated. Others have to be deciphered.
We don't just calculate student loans. We decipher the strategy behind them.
Repayment. Forgiveness. Taxes. Income. Family. Career.
Descifra brings the pieces together to give each employee clear, personalized direction.
Personalized student loan guidance. Delivered as an employee benefit.
Descifra combines technology, financial analysis, and specialized professional judgment to turn each employee’s individual circumstances into a personalized strategy and clear action plan.
Each path is projected to its resolution: required payments, total cost, potential forgiveness, and tax consequences.
No recommendation goes from the model straight to the employee. Professional judgment sits in between.
Technology does the analysis. Experience provides the context.
Descifra is built around real-world student loan and financial planning experience.
Every analysis is reviewed by a financial planning professional who holds the Certified Student Loan Professional® (CSLP®) designation before the employee receives their strategy and action plan.
Where an employee works can change what their loans cost them.
forgiven for approximately 1.254 million borrowers under PSLF and its related programs, through April 2026.
PSLF is one variable in the analysis, not its object. Descifra does not assume every employee should pursue forgiveness, and does not promise recruitment or retention outcomes.
Same person. Same loans. Different strategies. Different outcomes.
This employee was weighing a real career decision: stay with a PSLF-qualifying employer or move into private practice. The analysis compared both complete paths, not just repayment plans.
Descifra doesn't stop at calculating a monthly payment.
It compares how different strategies may affect payments, forgiveness, taxes, and total cost over time.
Emily's goal is PSLF. Because her remaining balance is expected to be forgiven, the strategy is designed to keep her required qualifying payments as low as possible while she progresses toward forgiveness.
Submit a new Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) Plan Request on StudentAid.gov before the required date and stay on PAYE. Under Emily’s strategy, PAYE keeps her required payment lower while those payments continue counting toward PSLF.
Talk to your tax professional before you file. The strategy assumes Married Filing Separately because it produces a lower student loan payment under PAYE, but the overall tax impact needs to be confirmed.
Use the Federal Student Aid PSLF Help Tool to certify your qualifying employment and keep your progress toward the 120 qualifying payments up to date.
When it is time to leave PAYE, submit a new IDR request selecting IBR. Among the repayment options evaluated for her strategy, IBR keeps her required payment lower while she continues progressing toward PSLF.
Recertify your employment through the PSLF Help Tool and review your qualifying payment count as you progress toward forgiveness.
| Strategy | Total cost | Ends | Forgiven |
|---|---|---|---|
| PAYE → IBR with PSLF | $108,620 | 2034 | $104,242 |
| PAYE → RAP with PSLF | $131,953 | 2034 | $52,354 |
| PAYE → RAP | $191,843 | 2035 | — |
| PAYE → IBR · private practice | $223,277 | 2039 | — |
Representative example for illustrative purposes. Individual results depend on borrower circumstances, applicable rules, and future changes. Drawn from a real Descifra analysis; “Emily Parker” is an illustrative name, and identifying data was removed to protect the client's identity.
Personalized for the employee.
Simple for the organization.
Employees receive individualized analysis, a personalized strategy, and a clear action plan. The organization offers access without becoming involved in anyone's personal financial decisions.
Recruitment, retention, differentiation, and financial wellness are potential employer benefits, not guaranteed outcomes.
The employee's financial information is confidential. The employer does not have access to the employee's student loans, income, tax information, or other personal financial information.
No recommendation reaches an employee straight from the model. A financial planning professional holding the CSLP® designation reviews every analysis first.
About Descifra →A benefit that can fit the organization.
Descifra can be structured around the organization's benefits strategy and budget. It works even when the organization contributes nothing toward the loan itself.
Give your employees more than information.
Give them direction.
See how Descifra can help your organization provide personalized student loan guidance as an employee benefit.
Let's explore what Descifra could look like for your organization.