Student debt in the United States is rising by more than $2,700 each second, according to the Dow Jones-run news service MarketWatch.

When it comes to higher education, that isn’t the only number on the rise. According to data published by College Board, even when adjusted for inflation, college tuition for public four-year and two-year institutions has risen steadily since 1975.

“The cost of a college education is rapidly becoming one of the largest financial challenges that Americans will face in their lifetimes,” Steve Tremble, president of American Consumer Credit Counseling, said in 2014. He added that former students “feel they might have made different choices if they knew how difficult it would be to manage their college debt.”

Adela Soliz, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy, said that one problem with students accruing student loan debt seems to be that there is a disconnect between the moment make these financial decisions to enter college and the moment they graduate and have to start repaying the loans they signed up for.

“I think educating students about those things is key,” she said. “But then the question is how. It’s very hard to teach people in general about... financial decision making. It’s just very difficult.”

The data points to the possibility that many college students sign onto loans whether they know exactly what they’re signing up for or not.

THIS ISN’T JUST A MILLENNIAL ISSUE

Americans today owe about $1.2 trillion in student loans. According to statistics reported last April by the the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, student loan debt is not just a problem for millennials. Two-thirds of America’s total student loan debt is held by people over the age of 30, and people over 60 hold about $43 billion of the total debt. Less than half of those with this debt are actually making payments on time.

The American Association of Retired Persons also reported in an article that more than 80 percent of the debt borne by older consumers was for their own education rather than for a child.

WHERE DO THE CANDIDATES STAND?

Higher education costs and student loan debt have become an important issue on the national stage, and with the next presidential election underway, many wonder whether any of the candidates’ plans will solve the problem.

While some candidates are very vocal about these issues, some candidates rarely mention policies relating to higher education at all.

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump doesn’t mention higher education on his website, but said at an event in Salem, New Hampshire last February that he’s going to look into colleges and "do something with regard to really smart financing.”

Even though he frequently mentions his own student loan debt, Ted Cruz has not yet proposed a detailed plan regarding higher education. He also voted against Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s most recent proposal that would have allowed student loan refinancing so that people with student loans could negotiate lower interest rates.

Marco Rubio has the most extensive plan of the Republicans currently running for president. He proposes “Student Investment Plans,” which would allow students to rely on private investors to finance their college educations rather than relying on student loans. He also encourages career and vocational education, as well as income-based repayment, which would allow borrowers to make payments in proportion to what they earn, a payment plan that many loan servicers already offer to borrowers.

Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have presented more detailed plans.

Clinton said she wants to ensure no student has to borrow to pay for tuition, books or fees to attend a four-year public college in their state under the New College Compact. Under her plan, students at community colleges would receive free tuition, while colleges and universities would be held accountable for controlling costs and making tuition affordable. She said that states would have to invest in higher education “by maintaining current levels of higher education funding and reinvesting over time.”

She also said she would enable Americans with existing student loan debt to refinance at current rates, and would finance her plan by limiting “certain tax expenditures” for high-income taxpayers.

Sanders, has been the most candid about his higher education policies, putting forth a plan to make public colleges and universities tuition-free, a proposal that he said would be paid for by imposing a tax on Wall Street speculators.

“If the taxpayers of this country could bail out Wall Street in 2008, [then] we can make public colleges and universities tuition free and debt free throughout the country,” he said in a statement on his website. Like Clinton, he also supports cutting student loan interest rates and refinancing student loans at today’s loan interest rates.

SOLUTIONS LOOKING FORWARD

In response to the growing higher education finance problems, there have been some recent initiatives implemented to help borrowers of student loan debt. In 2012, President Obama passed the Pay As You Earn, or PAYE, repayment plan, which caps loan payments at 10 percent of a person’s income and forgives any remaining balance after 20 years of repayment. In March 2015, Sen. Warren proposed a bill that would have allowed people with college loan debt to refinance at interest rates from the 2013-2014 academic year. It was blocked by Senate Republicans. 

According to Soliz, one of the most important solutions to consider is educating students before they even begin to take out loans.

“[When you’re starting college] you don’t know what a loan is. You might not have had a credit card or you may have your very first one at that point,” she said. “You probably don’t know what it’s like to pay your living expenses yet. You might have an idea of what you’re going to major in, and then some estimate of what you could earn with that major, but you know you might change your mind in the middle, so it’s complicated and wrought with uncertainty.”