House Democrats are likely to score a victory in their plan to cut interest rates on federal student loans, but GOP and industry opposition and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate could limit success to one chamber.

The hazy details available in the days before Democrats release the plan -- including cutting rates only on subsidized loans and phasing in the cuts -- indicate that they might have found ways to ease budgetary hurdles. But that is just one of several obstacles to getting an interest-rate reduction signed into law.

A fierce message war is under way over the plan, which, along with Senate reluctance to act quickly on any House-passed measure, could imperil final passage of a rate reduction.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed to cut interest rates in half,from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent, as part of the Democrats' agenda for the opening days of the 110th Congress.

But because the government guarantees a fixed return to banks that generate student loans, reducing borrowers' scheduled payments would shift much of the cost to the federal government.

Democrats plan to phase in the rate cuts, lowering them to 6.12 percent in 2007 and dropping them incrementally until they reach 3.4 percent in 2011. The phase-in could ease the near-term problem of where to get the $18 billion to $60 billion it would cost to enact a five-year rate cut, according to Mark Kantrowitz, president of MK Consulting Inc. and publisher of FinAid.org, a subsidiary of Citigroup...

But GOP leaders are not likely to drop the argument over costs, even after the House vote on the proposal, scheduled for Jan. 17.

"Republicans really want to win back power, so they plan to attack popular proposals," said Michael Dannenberg, director of the education policy program at the nonpartisan New America Foundation. "Make popular proposals unpopular..."

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