The Senate has approved a bipartisan measure to lower student loan rates for now, only to hike them in just a few years. The interest rate for Stafford loans climbed to 6.8 percent earlier this month after Congress failed to reach a deal to avoid the hike. Under the new Senate measure, students will pay a lower rate through 2015 but then see those rates jump as they become attached to financial markets. The bill passed by a margin of 81 to 18. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren was among those to vote in opposition.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “My colleagues who support this proposal say that it will lower loans — interest rates on loans for this year and that’s all that matters. Now, that’s the same thing credit card companies said when they sold zero-interest credit cards, and it’s the same thing subprime mortgage lenders said when they sold teaser rate mortgages. In all these cases, the bill comes due. Nobody disputes the fact that within just a few years, according to our best estimates, students — all students will end up paying far higher interest rates on their loans than they do right now.”

Earlier this year, Sen. Warren proposed a measure that would have lowered student loan interest rates to 0.75 percent — the same rate given to big banks on government loans.