Earlier this year, President Barack Obama announced an initiative to grow the nation's number of college graduates by 5 million by 2020. He specifically targeted the nation's community colleges as the institutions to carry out this mission.

No one can argue with the need for more college graduates: In the coming years, jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience. Workers will only fill many of these new jobs if they receive the training offered by community colleges. He then committed $12 billion toward helping community colleges increase training programs and expand educational opportunities.

The new funding is great news, especially because between 2002 and 2005, federal spending for community colleges fell by 6 percent, while spending on four-year colleges increased.

Already in our country, 59 percent of all nurses get their training at community colleges. About 40 percent of the nation's teachers get their start at community colleges. Nationally, community colleges educate roughly half of all students but receive only a quarter of what's given out in state and local funds to four-year public and private colleges.

Community colleges like Santa Fe Community College are a great choice for students seeking to enter the world of higher education or get right into a career. According to the American Association of Community Colleges, average annual tuition and fees at public community colleges are $2,191, compared to $5,491 at public four-year colleges. At SFCC, tuition is even lower. Even when a scheduled 5 percent tuition increase for the spring 2010 semester is taken into account, full-time SFCC students will still only pay about $1,113 per year.

Generous institutional financial aid, a recent increase in the federal Pell Grant Program and innovative programs such as the Contract for a Better Tomorrow (which pays students a stipend to stay in school and earn good grades), help make tuition even more affordable.

At Santa Fe Community College, we have worked to increase both training opportunities and graduation rates. The outlook on campus is optimistic: Enrollment has peaked at the highest number in our history, and mostly with full time, degree-seeking students. More of SFCC's students are staying in school: Our retention rate is 62 percent, above the national average. For Hispanic students, the numbers are even better, at 67 percent. The number of Hispanic students graduating from SFCC with degrees and certificates has nearly tripled over the last five years.

It's not enough to simply have more students enrolled. Community colleges must also offer the degrees and training programs students need. In 2004-2005, SFCC offered 30 different associate degrees and 10 certificates. Today the college offers 35 associate degrees and 30 certificates. Many of our new certificates are in the green building and environmental technologies areas. In the past two years, we've added respiratory therapy and expanded the Emergency Medical Technician program.

We have started construction on our new state-of-the-art Health and Sciences Building and earlier this August, we broke ground on the Sustainable Technologies Center. We have also put forward a proposal to host a Higher Learning Center on the campus of the College of Santa Fe, where state universities could partner with SFCC to bring more accessible bachelor's and master's degrees to local citizens.

Five million more college graduates by 2020? It's a dream worth pursuing, and Santa Fe Community College looks forward to helping it come true.

Bruce Besser is chairman of the Santa Fe Community College governing board. He lives in Santa Fe.