His goal is to boost the offerings of community colleges nationwide, providing much-needed aid to enhance their programs and ensure that students have access to education that results in a strengthened American workforce. He also plans to counter soaring high school dropout rates by designing programs that place students on a path toward an associate or bachelor’s degree.

Money would also be earmarked to help develop online courses that will enable colleges and universities to offer more classes and serve more students.

According to the White House, the Initiative will cost about $12 billion over 10 years, but would be offset by ending wasteful subsidies to banks and private lenders of student loans, said Obama.