Just as a new study concluded that college graduates with student debt are less likely to thrive in the workforce, Senate Democrats have introduced legislation that would lessen the burden of student loan rates.
The study by Gallup and Purdue University found that graduates who owed money upon graduation have a disadvantage in the workforce versus students who did not. Among other findings, the study concluded that graduates who finished their degree in four years were twice as likely to be engaged in their jobs versus those who spent more time in college.
All of this comes at a time when Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, introduced legislation that she believes would allow students, currently locked into high student loan interest rates, to refinance those loans for an interest rate as low as three percent.
Presently, an average college student owes over $27,000 in debt, topping over $1 trillion in student debt across the country by over 37 million graduates, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This alone makes student debt the second highest form of debt just after mortgage debt, surpassing credit card debt in our nation.
But, as Jordan Weissmann at Slate points out, Warren's attempt at lowering student loan rates and the burden of student loans may end up being a dead end.
Warren's plan, which is expected to be popular among college graduates, will pay for itself by enacting a minimum tax rate on millionaires. Also, economists are worried the proposal would only further heighten overall debt, passing that down to the next generation of graduates.
As Weissmann writes, this solution by Warren will most likely not end in bipartisan agreement.  
"This is mostly political theater," wrote Weissmann. "Republicans will surely vote against the bill, which will let Democrats say the GOP sided with the rich and against students. End of scene."
This is not the first battle over student loans Warren has been involved in. Just last year, she introduced her first piece of legislation in the Senate that would have essentially reduced the subsidized student loan interest rate to the same rate that the country's biggest banks pay to borrow money from the Federal Reserve.
At the time, banks paid a minimum of 0.75 percent to borrow from the Federal Reserve. Warren's previous plan would have asked the Federal Reserve to give the Department of Education the funds necessary to equalize rates.
The student loan crisis is also nothing new for legislators. According to the American Student Assistance, in the past seven years the average college graduate's student debt has increased by 58 percent. Since 2005, the average amount of student loan debt owed by an undergraduate student has increased by $10,000.
Warren's legislation is co-sponsored by more than 20 fellow Senate Democrats.