Obama to propose free community college

President Obama will announce a proposal to make two years of community college "free for anyone who's willing to work for it," the White House said Friday.

In a statement issued Friday morning, the White House said the president wants to make two years of college "as free and universal as high school."

The plan would affect about 9 million students, the White House said, as long as they maintain a 2.5 grade average and are on track to graduate.

Obama is set to formally announce his plan Friday in a speech in Tennessee.

"Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who's willing to work for it," Obama said in a video released Thursday night teasing his speech released Thur. "That's right — free for everybody who's willing to work for it.

"It's something that we can accomplish, and it's something that'll train our workforce so that we can compete with anybody in the world."

Under the plan, the federal government will provide three-quarters of the cost while states that participate would be responsible for the remaining 25 percent.

Full-time students would save an average of $3,800 in annual tuition, the White House said.

New Jersey is home to 19 community colleges, which enrolled 167,580 undergraduates in fall 2013. Of those, 86,321 were full-time students.

For full-time students attending the community college in their district, average annual tuition and fees were $4,319 for the 2013-14 academic year. The lowest total cost for the year was at Burlington County College, which cost full-time students $3,765, and the most expensive college was Union County College, which charged students $5,228 for the year.