What do I do if I decided to take online courses and my employer helped me pay part of my tuition but now they want reimbursement since I’m leaving?
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What do I do if I decided to take online courses and my employer helped me pay part of my tuition but now they want reimbursement since I’m leaving?
I was not aware that I had to repay them nor did they tell me when they gave me funds. I was really confused about this and started to look over my employee handbook. There is a section that stats “to be eligible for payment/reimbursement, an employee will be required to sign a service commitment agreement. I never signed this agreement and was never made aware of this. Do I have to pay them back?
Asked on February 14, 2016 under Employment Labor Law, Georgia
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 8 years ago | Contributor
No, you do not: while employee reimbursement if the employee leaves before a certain length of time is legal, the employee must agree to it. If you were never told that you could be required to reimburse the tuition and never signed anything which would indicate that, you would not be liable to provide reimbursement. If the company wanted you to reimburse, they needed to tell you about that ahead of time, so you had the chance to not participate or not accept the tuition assistance.
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