On Jan. 9, President Obama announced the America’s College Promise proposal, an initiative which, if adopted and funded, would make an estimated nine million students eligible for an average of $3,800 per year in tuition assistance at community colleges throughout the nation, for an estimated cost of $60 billion. (“Fact Sheet: White House Unveils America’s College Promise Proposal: Tuition-Free Community College for Responsible Students”)

Modeled after programs in Tennessee and Chicago, the proposal is closely linked to other initiatives of the Obama presidency, including increases in the maximum value of Pell Grants; the expansion of education tax credits; pay-as-you-earn loans (wherein loan payments are capped at 10 percent of income); and so forth, all designed to address the president’s call for increasing the percentage of the adult population with an associate’s or bachelor’s degree from today’s level of approximately 40 percent to 60 percent by 2020.