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Obama Unveils Community College Initiative

Today, President Obama will unveil a $12 billion initiative to boost community colleges and move the US toward his goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.  President Obama’s will include the following:

  • $9 billion will go mainly for “challenge grants” awarded on a competitive basis to encourage community colleges to propose and launch innovative new programs.  Some of the $9 billion would fund programs to address the problem of students dropping out of college.
  • $2.5 billion would be used as seed money to generate $10 billion in renovation and construction at community colleges.
  • Another $500 million would be used to develop online courses and materials to improve student learning, including artificial intelligence tutoring and multimedia courses.

President Obama’s Statement and Fact Sheet