Senate Stalls on Legislation for Student Loan Relief WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate rejected dueling Democratic and Republican plans on Thursday for averting a July 1 doubling of interest rates on federal college loans for 7.4 million students, pushing back efforts to resolve the problem until next month. Before heading off for a 10-day Memorial Day recess, senators voted 62 to 34 against the Republican package and 51 to 43 for the Democratic version, with each falling short of the 60 votes needed for approval. The votes, largely along party lines, were preordained, but the exercise gave lawmakers from each party a chance to show they favor easing students" financial burdens - and offered potential grist for campaign ads accusing the other side of opposing the effort. A 2007 law gradually reduced interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans for low- and middle-income students to 3.4 percent. To save money, it mandated that rates return to 6.8 percent for new loans as of July 1. President Obama has made preventing a rate increase a priority and has appeared at colleges and on television talk shows to promote it. Though some Republicans expressed early concerns that retaining the lower rate would add to college tuition increases, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, endorsed freezing the rate, and most Republican lawmakers have done the same. Both measures rejected Thursday would have delayed the interest rate increase for a year at a cost of $6 billion, but each side's bill was paid for in a way the other could not tolerate. Democrats proposed raising Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes on high-earning owners of some privately held companies and professional practices, while Republicans proposed abolishing an Obama administration preventive health program. That idea drew a White House veto threat when Republicans used it to pay for their House-passed bill in April.