INDIANAPOLIS - Arthur Call commutes three hours roundtrip to his anatomy class at community college because similar courses on campuses closer to his Indianapolis home are packed this semester.

"Classes around the state were just full," said Call, a full-time student who takes the rest of his classes in Indianapolis. "Thank God [the class meets] only Tuesdays."

President Obama has seen the spurt in attendance at community colleges during the last year and has proposed investing about $12 billion in them, with the aim of seeing an additional five million students graduate by 2020. The goal comes while many schools are already packed with droves of displaced workers hit by the recession, who are competing with traditional students seeking an education bargain.

But the money could prove a bane as well as a blessing for some colleges. "All community colleges are not prepared to take on those potentially large numbers of students," said Debra Bragg, a professor and director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois.

The Obama administration notes that five million more community college graduates do not necessarily mean there will be that many more students - schools could increase graduation rates to reach the goal. And the administration says money from the 10-year initiative to rebuild aging facilities and establish online classes would help schools handle the extra students.

Bragg said the schools' ability to deal with more students largely comes down to cash.

Much of the money for the nation's 1,200 community colleges comes from local and state sources. That funding has been hard to come by during the economic downturn, even as enrollment booms.

Obama's 10-year initiative would provide a welcome infusion of cash, but some fear it would not sustain community college programs.

The conundrum comes at a time of intense growth for the more than century-old community college system, which already educates more than half the nation's undergraduates.

And more young Americans than ever are going to college, particularly community college. A record high of about 11.5 million Americans age 18 to 24, or nearly 40 percent, attended college in October 2008, according to a study of Census data recently released by the Pew Research Center. Almost all of the increase of 300,000 students over the previous year came at two-year schools. About 12 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in community colleges last year, up from 10.9 percent in 2007.

While officials wait to see whether Obama's plan will become reality, community colleges are turning to creative - though not always convenient - ways to cope with already large crowds.

Bunker Hill Community College in Massachusetts holds graveyard-shift classes that end at 2:30 a.m., while the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland has converted a student lounge and locker room space into classrooms.

Michael Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association, said classes in popular fields such as nursing required low student-to-faculty ratios and expensive equipment. He is concerned it will be difficult to meet new demand without yet more funding.

"It's a little bit of a bittersweet pill," Hansen said. "It's great that people are coming back to community colleges to get trained, but a student only brings about a third of the cost of their tuition."

Call, the commuter, says that whatever it takes to get to class, for him, "it's definitely worth it."