Real talk this week: one of the cruelest trade-offs for young professionals — pay down student loans or capture the 401(k) match — quietly stopped being a trade-off. Employers can now match your loan payments into your retirement plan. Almost nobody knows.
The Principle: Never Leave the Match
01. Name the move.
SECURE 2.0 (Section 110) lets employers treat student loan payments like retirement contributions — and match them into your 401(k).
02. Make it practical.
It costs one email: ask HR whether your plan offers a student-loan match and what payment certification they need. Optional for employers — so ask.
03. Show the proof.
Skipping a match in your twenties doesn't cost you the match — it costs decades of compounding on money that was never yours to give up.
What actually changed
The SECURE 2.0 Act included a provision — Section 110 — that lets employers make a matching contribution to your retirement plan based on your student loan payments, not just on money you put into the 401(k) yourself.
Read that slowly. Under a plan that offers this, you make your regular student loan payment. Your employer then treats that payment as if it were a 401(k) contribution and drops a matching amount into your retirement account. You never had to divert a dollar from the loan into the 401(k) to earn the match. The loan payment is the qualifying action.
It became available for plan years starting after the end of 2023, and the IRS issued detailed guidance in 2024 for employers setting it up. So this isn’t a rumor or a proposal — it’s live, and a growing number of employers are adopting it.
Why almost nobody is using it
Two reasons. First, it’s optional for employers — the law permits it; it doesn’t require it. So it only helps you if your specific plan offers it. Second, and this is the real gap: the plans that do offer it don’t exactly put it on a billboard. It sits in benefits documents most people never read. The result is a genuinely valuable benefit that goes unclaimed because the people it’s designed for don’t know to look.
What to do this week
This costs you nothing but one email. If you’re carrying student loans and your employer offers a 401(k) (or 403(b), governmental 457(b), or SIMPLE IRA), send your HR or benefits contact one question: “Does our retirement plan offer a matching contribution based on qualified student loan payments under SECURE 2.0?”
If the answer is yes, ask how to enroll and what certification of your payments they need. You may be able to keep attacking your loans and start capturing a match you assumed you had to give up. If the answer is no, you’ve lost two minutes — and you now know a benefit worth asking for as these programs spread.
Why this compounds
The cost of skipping an employer match in your twenties isn’t the match — it’s decades of growth on money that was never yours to skip. The old advice forced a lot of people to give that up in the name of killing debt. This provision is one of the rare cases where the system quietly got better, and the only people who benefit are the ones paying enough attention to ask. Intentionality isn’t just how you spend. Sometimes it’s knowing which question to send on a Tuesday.
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— Mario
P.S. Know someone drowning in loans who thinks they can’t afford to save yet? Forward this. Free to subscribe at macwithintent.com/subscribe.
Educational only — not personalized tax or financial advice. Availability depends entirely on your employer’s plan, and program rules can change; confirm details with your plan administrator and a qualified professional. Mario Cabral is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional. To unsubscribe, click here. MacwithIntent | [physical address] | © 2026.