Plan Tutorial

This page provides the parameters for tuition assistance plans that are supported through EdAssist and MyEdAssist.com

EdAssist gives you the option to limit those educational expenses covered under the plan:

• Tuition:Tuition equates to the cost of a course, and may or may not be tied to the units granted in the course.
• Tuition Cap: You may elect to cap the tuition your Company will pay per student on an annual basis. A company, for example, may choose to cap tuition per employee at $10,000 per year. EdAssist supports any annual tuition cap per employee.
• Books: Books include all required texts for the course.
• Book Cap: We also support an annual cap on textbook purchases per employee.
• Other Fees: Other fees can include any fee outside of tuition and textbooks that is necessary to fulfill the requirements of the course. Some schools, for example, may require a parking pass to park on campus, or the purchase of educational software. These would fall under "Other Fees". EdAssist supports the management of "Other Fees" under all of our tuition assistance plans.
• Other Fees Cap: EdAssist supports an annual cap of any amount on all "Other Fees" per employee.

EdAssist gives you the option of supporting only regionally accredited education, supporting both regionally accredited education and training, or supporting all forms of learning, including regionally accredited education, training, and learning products.

• Regionally accredited education: This includes all education offered by regionally accredited learning institutions. Regional accreditation is a requirement by most universities in the United States that grant college credit, and establishes the standards by which schools may transfer college credit from one learning institution to another.
  EdAssist supports degree programs from regionally accredited learning institutions only. To learn more about regional accreditation, click here.
• Training: Training may include all internal and external learning that is provided by institutions that are not regionally accredited.
• Learning Products: Learning products could include audio cassettes, books, CD-ROMs, etc., that a student may wish to purchase to pursue personal or professional development. EdAssist can support the purchase of these products. We provide the approval and workflow process to guarantee that these items are deemed important by the employee's manager and tuition administrator before any purchase is made.

EdAssist supports the following additional requirements for tuition assistance:

• Job-Related: This requirement would be made by your Company if you wish to ensure that all education reimbursed by the Company is related to the employee's specific job responsibilities. This requirement is enforced by the employee's manager during the purchase approval process.
• Management Approval Process: EdAssist supports the requirement for management approval of all employees who wish to take courses that are covered under the employer tuition assistance program. This is a standard feature of the EdAssist authorization process.
• Grade Requirements: EdAssist requests verification of course completion from the employee upon completion of every course. We do this through an email form completed by the employee. If the course was completed with a grade, we ask the employee to provide the grade they received in the course, and we communicate to the employee that we will share this information with the tuition administrator.
  If the tuition administrator would like to review the original grade transcripts as proof of course completion, we will note this in our communications to the employee. EdAssist does not receive original transcripts nor store the official copies.

The following steps are taken to ensure successful implementation of your Company's tuition assistance plan:

• Finalize the attributes of your education assistance plan: A plan consultant from edassist will contact you directly to review the attributes of your tuition assistance plan, and once complete, a final plan will be drafted and signed by an authorized employee of your Company.
• Select corporate tuition administrator: A key attribute of edassist is the ability, through our workflow and reporting functionality, to reduce administrative oversight dramatically. One employee, designated by your Company, can perform the purchase approvals and review the spending reports directly through EdAssist. This designated administrator will have special access into edassist to manage program approvals, modify plan attributes, place spending holds on employees, interface with learning providers and review monthly reports.
• Finalize contract and billing relationship and service level agreements
• Electronic feed of employee information: Although not a requirement to implement the edassist solution, we like to establish employee verification through an electronic feed of employee information. In much the same way you may provide this information to a payroll service provider, we take a feed of employee information to verify that a user is, in fact, an employee at your Company. This feed conforms to the tuition benefits attributes of the plan you have selected.
• Communications plan to employees regarding new educational benefits program: We provide you with a complete communications campaign to promote your Company's tuition assistance program through EdAssist.
• Employees set up accounts through MyEdAssist.com and begin tuition assistance requests: Each employee has a personal account within MyEdAssist.com where he/she manages correspondence with learning providers, secures approvals for courses, and tracks purchases and course completions. The tuition assistance process is driven by the employee, and managed through MyEdAssist.com. Employees have 24 hour access to manage their professional development.