As various politicians, scholars and students search for new ways to fix post-graduation student debt, the state of Oklahoma has new method, the Kansas City Star reported.

Some 1,360 children who are just getting ready to enter the first grade are doing so with $1,000 already in a savings account designated for college tuition. Six years ago, the state created those 1,360 savings accounts, with $1,000 in each, for infants born in some low-income families.

It is known as the SEED for Oklahoma Kids project and is an experiment to prove that kids with college aspirations from birth are more likely to attend and succeed. It also hopes to eliminate the need for that student to borrow money for school.

William Elliott III, associate professor of social welfare at the University of Kansas said the project hopes to prove that "children who have assets for college would be more likely to believe college is in their future."

Elliott already has lofty ambitions for the plan, setting his sites set on each state providing similar birth-to-college savings accounts for every child in the U.S. He has a doctorate from the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, the organization that launched the Oklahoma project.

16 similar projects have already been in place in other cities since 2010. For example, in San Francisco, all children get such a savings account when they enter kindergarten. Children on free or reduced lunch start with $100 and all other begin with $50.

Families can add money whenever they would like, but can only take money out for education-related purposes. So far, more than 7,000 children have city-sponsored college savings accounts.

"That benefits the student, the economy and the nation," Elliott said. "The American financial aid system is in crisis. We simply cannot continue to rely on borrowing."

Student debt has risen 31 percent since the Oklahoma project began in 2007 and the national total is estimated to be well over $900 billion.

Sallie Mae recently released a report that stated more graduating high school seniors and their families are using grants and scholarships to pay for school than ever before. The cause is rising prices of the nation's top schools. Additionally, about two-thirds of families are eliminating those top schools due to their price being too high.

A deposit of $1,000 at birth would be worth approximately $2,700 after 18 years, slightly below the average annual cost of a two-year program at a community college.

With a deposit of $20 per month, that total at age 18 would be about $10,000.

(The author of this article changed an incorrect figure.)