As Hillary Clinton travels the country collecting six figure speaking fees on college campuses, Democrats in the senate are insisting that they care very deeply about student debt.

Michael Stratford of Inside Higher Ed reports.

Student Debt on Campaign Trail

Student debt attracted unprecedented levels of attention during the 2012 presidential election.

As the nation’s collective student loan bill for the first time surpassed the $1 trillion threshold and a Congressional deadline on interest rates loomed, student debt captured the attention of both presidential candidates.

Two years later, student debt remains a hot topic in Washington. And even without the drama of a presidential contest, the issue is cropping up on the 2014 campaign trail in some of the most contentious Senate races.

Since holding a vote on their student loan refinancing plan last month, many Senate Democrats have been promoting the plan across the country. Most visibly, the proposal’s main architect, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has traveled to West Virginia and Kentucky in recent weeks to campaign for Democratic candidates for Senate.

Warren has rallied voters in both states with a populist message about helping the middle class, including providing relief to student loan borrowers. As she has before, she framed her debt relief bill as a choice between helping students or wealthy Americans.

In West Virginia, the Democratic Senate candidate Natalie Tennant, the current secretary of state, distanced herself from Warren’s support of the Obama administration’s regulations on coal emissions.

But Tennant enthusiastically embraced Warren’s student debt refinancing bill, including it as part of her education agenda. Both Tennant and Warren were introduced at a campaign rally this month by a West Virginia University law student who said she would be $108,000 in debt by the time she graduates.