My understanding:

I don't know what state you live in, I just talked with an counsellor last week. I don’t think you are talking about a mandatory retirement plan. For this plan, you don’t have a choice, you must contribute a certain amount tax sheltered contributions, and you have to work for a certain amount of time, say 10 years, if you leave before 10 years, you can only apply for a refund of YOUR (only yours) accumulated contributions, you will pay taxes when you take this money out. You will be refunded about 80% percent of the taxable amount of the contributions and refundable interest, if any.

I think you are talking about a voluntary program, since your people talked to you, asked you to think about it before enrolling in it. In this case, what they match is your money; you can carry over with you to some other academic employers.