Dive Brief:

• President Barack Obama continued promoting his free community college plan during a Friday event at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis, touting two-year schools as a path to jobs and four-year college.
• Obama said Republicans in opposition of the plan should put forth their own proposals, but not “ignore the problems,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.
• Students should start thinking from the time they are ninth graders about gaining the best job skills cheaply, and they should use technology and fast pathways to those skills, Obama said.

Dive Insight:

In touting the community college path and saying that four-year schools aren’t for everyone, Obama could be perceived as knocking the four-year higher education institutions. Do baccalaureate institutions need a public relations campaign reminding prospective students about their benefits versus the cheapest-and-fastest alternatives? When asked about whether free community college would cut into the enrollment of four-year institutions, Obama said that plenty of students would attend baccalaureate schools for all four years.