College Coach

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Companies are rolling out a new benefit that aims to alleviate a big source of stress for many middle-aged employees: help getting their kids into college.A number of employers are inviting former college admissions officers to lecture and offer advice to employees. Some are contracting with outside consulting firms to guide employees through the labyrinth of testing, admissions and financial aid.This past spring, Boston-based law firm Bingham McCutchen offered its employees access to a college admissions question-and-answer hotline and one-on-one counseling sessions. Last month, Millennium Pharmaceuticals offered a seminar and individual financial-counseling sessions for employees interested in strategies on how to save for college. And accounting firm RSM McGladrey, a unit of H&R Block, has begun offering a Web-based seminar that gives an overview of college-admissions testing.Such programs, which are offered free to employees, come at a time when health-care premiums are rising and employers are cutting back many benefits. To compensate, companies are adding more "soft" benefits -- from group discounts on gym memberships to pet insurance -- that cost them very little, if anything."There has been a more open attitude towards benefits that are off the mainstream," says Barry Schilmeister, principal in the health and benefits division of Mercer, the human-resources consulting unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos. As companies increase their employees' out-of-pocket costs, they are looking for "touchy-feely" benefits that can soften the blow, he says.Employers also see the services as a way to encourage worker productivity, since many employees already spend countless hours at the office researching the complex web of college admissions and financial aid. "We think it's a stressful point in peoples' lives, financially and emotionally," says Tracy Simpson, associate director of human resources at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. "When something stresses you out emotionally, it could affect your worklife as well."The third-party companies that have provided these services for a few years are now seeing a huge surge in business. And others already in the college-admissions business are seeing new potential customers in the corporate world, thanks to the general public's obsession over the increasingly competitive world of college admissions."Increasingly, I'm hearing from my members who are saying they're being contacted by companies" to provide counseling to employees, says Mark Sklarow, executive director of the Independent Educational Consultants Association in Fairfax, Va. "There's no doubt I'm hearing about it more than ever before."College Coach, based in Watertown, Mass., offers programs to companies that include seminars, one-on-one counseling, and a toll-free hotline that employees can use to make unlimited calls when they or their children have a question. The firm, now owned by corporate child-care company Bright Horizons Family Solutions Incorporated, employs over two dozen education counselors to teach the seminars and answer calls -- many of whom used to work at admissions offices at elite schools including Georgetown, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.

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