By Lisa Balschunat
Ninety staffers nationwide at Fingerpaint Marketing are getting help paying off their college student loans.
Edward Mitzen, founder of the Saratoga Springs-based company, saw an opportunity to assist employees in reducing or paying off their student loans. He gave each of them $30,000 for that purpose, with no strings attached.
“We recruit the best and the brightest,” Mitzen said. “We always look for ways to do right by staff. We cover 100 percent of their health care premiums. We offer paid sabbaticals … We had student loan program that paid out about $100 per month to a staffer. It was a nice program, but it wasn’t helping enough. It barely covered the interest on a monthly loan payment.”
Fingerpaint is a health and wellness marketing firm with a global team of more than 580 people. Known for its innovate and data-drive approach, the firm provides marketing solutions to healthcare clients specifically in the pharmaceutical, rare disease and gene therapy sectors.
“We conducted a staff survey about how much debt people were carrying due to college student loans,” he said. “What we found was that some people’s monthly payments were bigger than a monthly mortgage payment. Someone with a $40,000 loan who is paying into it for five years will still owe $40,000 in five years due to the interest.”