Candidly Claims $1.8B in Student Debt Impact

People using tools from Candidly, a student debt and savings optimization provider, have paid down $1.8 billion in student loans more than 200,000 years faster than they would have without those tools, the company’s “2024 Annual Impact Report” found.

Candidly’s Student Loan Retirement Match program allows employers to match employees’ student loan payments with retirement contributions. According to the report, the program saw a 13.5% increase in first-time retirement plan participation and a 27% increase in employees maximizing employer match benefits in 2024, compared with 2023.

Participants using the tool contributed an average of $3,300 annually to retirement plans. The program also led to a 58% reduction in job turnover likelihood among participating employees, according to the report.

The program’s implementation by plan sponsors tripled in 2024, Candidly reported. Early 2025 data show further acceleration, with more employers adopting the program in January 2025 than in all of 2024 and a 121% compound annual growth rate in median employee participation across large and mega-sized employers.

Expanding Financial Impact With Onward

In an effort to take its offerings beyond student loan debt repayment, in October 2024, Candidly introduced Onward, a solution leveraging artificial intelligence to optimize savings across various consumer debt categories. Initially launched as a tool for financial and retirement industry partners, Candidly intends to provide a user-facing Onward interface later in 2025.

Candidly’s core solutions continued to see growth in 2024, according to the report. Applications under its Public Service Loan Forgiveness offering, launched in 2022, reached record levels, with 46% of all-time submissions coming in 2024.

Employer-sponsored student loan contributions facilitated by Candidly resulted in an average interest savings of $5,000 per user and a four-and-a-half-year reduction in repayment time. Candidly’s Tuition Reimbursement solution helped prevent more than $1.1 million in potential student debt, with an average reimbursement of $3,434 per user, the report stated.

In 2024 Candidly has also launched two major products: a SECURE 2.0 Act-enabled Student Loan Retirement Match solution and Onward, the debt management solution.