A new proposal to make the first two years of community college free for students will be unveiled by President Barack Obama during his presidential tour to preview the State of the Union address on Friday in Tennessee, The Hill reported.
The president hopes "to start a conversation" about free community college for everyone, but people have to be willing to "work for it" and "do their part," Obama said while introducing the idea in a Facebook video posted on Thursday night, which included the hashtag "FreeCommunityCollege."
"Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everyone who's willing to work for it," Obama said in the video. "It's something we can accomplish, and it's something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world."
Although the Obama administration provided no price tag, no legislation, and little evidence of Republican support on Capitol Hill, the White House claimed that's beside the point at this stage since the bold effort would help refocus attention on the nation's higher education system and provide much-needed investment in the community college system.
"With no details or information on the cost, this seems more like a talking point than a plan," Cory Fritz, press secretary for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told the Associated Press.
The cost of the proposal could be estimated to be tens of billions of dollars a year, Obama domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz told reporters. Both the Republican Congress and State governments would then need to pass legislation to fund it.
If approved, federal funding would cover 75 percent of the proposal and the states would pay the remaining 25 percent, the Los Angeles Times noted.
"This is a proposal with bipartisan appeal," Munoz told The Hill. "Making sure students have access to higher education and the skills that they need is not a partisan proposal. It's a significant proposal. States will have to take the initiative to pick it up so it's not something we expect to happen overnight."
But officials stressed that the president's plan would "require everyone to do their part."
Garnering more than one million views, the video quickly attracted more than 75,000 likes and 35,500 shares. While some praised the commander-in-chief for his new proposal, others condemned the plan and the potential tax hike that could accompany it.
The plan could help 9 million students every year, saving them an average of $3,800 if all the states agreed to the proposal. But students would have to "do their part" by maintaining a 2.5 GPA, or C+, attend at least half-time and "make steady progress toward completing their program," Politico reported.
"It's not just for kids," Obama said. "We also have to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to constantly train themselves for better jobs, better wages, better benefits."
In order to participate, community colleges will also need to strengthen their academic requirements and increase the number of students who graduate. Additionally, only programs that either lead to a four-year college degree or provide occupational training skills would be able to qualify.
Meanwhile, the president will attempt to achieve some aspects of the proposal unilaterally - while conceding Congress would be necessary for the bulk of the proposal, White House press secretary Josh Earnest hinted earlier on Thursday, according to ABC News.
"I think there will be an allusion to some executive actions that are possible, but what the President has in mind tomorrow will be some steps that we can take with Congress," Earnest said.
"I hope we've got the chance to make sure that Congress gets behind these kinds of efforts to make sure that even as we rebound and grow in 2015, that it benefits everybody and not just some," the president said in the clip.
