WASHINGTON - President Obama proposed twp years of free community college for American workers friday, part of what the White House says is an effort to make community college as universal as high school is today.

Obama announced his proposal in a video uploaded to Facebook on Thursday and will deliver a speech Friday in Tennessee.

"Put simply, what I'd like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for anybody who's willing to work for it.", he said aboard Air Force One amid a three-state tour to preview the State if the Union Address. "It's something we can accomplish, and it's something that will train our workforce so that we can compete with anyone in the world."

The details on the cost and funding would come in the State of the Union Address on Jan. 20 and the president's budget request Feb. 2 sourced from the White House. But the White House expects 9 million students to participate and save up to $3,800 a years for two years. That would place the cost at nearly $70 billion, though there are questions about building capacity at the nation's 1,100 community colleges.

The federal government would pay three quarters of the cost, at least initially.

In some ways, the community college plan is a bookend to Obama's 2013 proposal to pay for universal Pre-Kindergarten through a state and federal partnership. That $75 billion proposal, which relied on dwindling tobacco tax money to provide federal matching funds, never got traction in Congress.

Obama, joined by Vice President Biden, will announce the plan at Pellissippi Community College in Knoxville, Tenn. Obama's plan is modeled after the Tennessee Promise -- a state-level free-college plan starting this fall, paid for with Tennessee Lottery proceeds.

Obama said a world-class education starts with children, but that adults need training, too. "It's not just for kids, we also have to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to constantly train themselves for better jobs, better wages, better benefits."

BREAKING: Watch President Obama announce his #FreeCommunityCollege proposal http://t.co/8YTKdPKa7U https://t.co/vtM3wGwEUd

The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 8, 2015