The movement to make student loan help as common as the 401(k) or vacation days just got a big boost.

Social Finance (SoFi), perhaps the best-known name in student loan refinancing, said Monday that it will offer a platform, called SoFi at Work, that employers can use to make contributions to their employees’ student loans. With the announcement, SoFi is joining a burgeoning industry of tech companies and startups offering to facilitate a student loan benefit for employers.

The growth of the sector and SoFi’s entry into the market is just the latest sign that student loan debt is becoming a nearly universal American experience. Firms are increasingly using offers of student loan help — often accompanied by splashy announcements — as a way to compete for top talent. SoFi officials say roughly 600 companies have signed on to use the platform, including seven of the top 10 tech firms in the Fortune 500.

SoFi is hoping their platform will help companies make student loan repayment “the third leg of employee benefits alongside health care and 401(k),” said Catesby Perrin, SoFi’s head of business development.

And indeed as borrowers increasingly contend with student loan debt, there’s indication that the demand is there for the perk. More than half of students and recent college graduates said they would rather get help from their companies paying off their student loans than receive a health plan, according to a recent survey from IonTution, a company that helps borrowers manage their loans, which also offers a platform employers can use to help pay off workers’ student debts. Nearly half of survey respondents said they would rather have student loan help from their companies than a 401(k).

Right now, just 3% of employers offer some kind of student loan repayment benefit, according to a 2015 survey from the Society of Human Resource Managers. But if the proliferation of third-party startups offering to help employers with the benefit is any indication, that number is likely to grow.

“We’re going to see more companies entering into this space because it’s starting to gain momentum,” said Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert and the publisher of Cappex.com, a college scholarship and search site. “Employers are realizing that this is not just a great recruiting tool, but also a great retention tool because you only get the loan repayment assistance while you’re an employee.”

One thing that may be limiting the growth of the benefit — for now — is how it’s treated for tax purposes. Currently, any student loan help a company offers its workers is taxed as income, which means that in many cases a job with higher pay is a better deal than one that offers to pay off your student loans.

But lawmakers are trying to change that. Members of Congress have introduced multiple bills that would allow employers to contribute at least a certain amount to their workers’ student loans tax-free. SoFi and others have lobbied in favor of the legislation.

“We think there’s a real possibility here that the federal government will react and see this as the really important investment that it is,” said Perrin, citing the history of the 401(k), which wasn’t enshrined into the tax code until it was already popular with employers. “We encourage our corporate partners to get involved in the conversation whether it’s publicly or privately.”

Some have argued that offering preferential tax treatment to workers reaping this benefit is the wrong way to go about mitigating the nation’s student loan problem. That’s because the borrowers who struggle the most typically aren’t those with steady jobs that offer a suite of perks. Instead, they’re students who left school with debt and no degree or who graduated with a credential that’s worth little in the labor market.

“It’s usually going to help the people who need the help the least because they have jobs,” Kantrowitz said. “It’s not as if this is a magical little bullet that everybody is looking for to solve the student loan problem,” he added.

Of course a change in the tax code that allows employers to offer student loan help tax-free would not only be a boon to workers saddled with debt, but also to employers and the third-party companies, like SoFi, that are serving them by opening the door to more business.

Companies that specialize in student loan refinancing have a finite pool to draw customers from because only certain, prime borrowers are eligible for their services. But theoretically any employee at a company offering student loan help has potential to get it. CommonBond, another student loan refinancing firm, also recently entered the employer perk market in part to draw new customers.

Perrin said tapping a different audience was also part of the motivation for SoFi’s move. “We thought there was a really great way for us to reach a really fantastic customer segment by working with employers directly,” he said.