Dive Brief:

• President Barack Obama plans to announce a plan Friday to make community college free for as many as 9 million students.
• White House officials on Thursday declined to talk about how the plan would be paid for, or how much it would cost, drawing Republican criticism, the New York Times reported.
• The plan, to be announced at a Tennessee community college, is modeled after the state’s own free community college program, Tennessee Promise, which has attracted almost 90% of high school seniors in the state.

Dive Insight:

Considering Republican opposition to the president, the plan would seem to face long odds of winning approval in Congress. It's noteworthy, however, that the Tennessee Promise program that inspired it was pushed by Republican Gov. Bill Haslam.

The White House said Obama will include the plan in his proposed budget and talk about it in his State of the Union speech on Jan. 20. Students who maintain at least a 2.5 grade point average and make progress toward completing qualified college programs would be eligible, and the qualified programs would include colleges offering credit toward four-year degrees and occupational training in certain high-demand fields. The federal government would pay for 75% of the program, with states paying the remainder, for an average savings for students of $3,800 per year.