Obama's day: Community colleges and job training

President Obama and Vice President Biden hit the stump together Wednesday to tout a new job training program involving community colleges.

Traveling to Oakdale, Pa., near Pittsburgh, Obama and Biden will pitch a plan to better connect the training of students at community colleges with specific types of jobs in the marketplace.

Using existing funds, the plan would offer $600 million in grants "to support job-driven training, like apprenticeships, that will expand partnerships with industry, businesses, unions, community colleges, and training organizations to train workers in the skills they need," said a White House statement.

Obama and Biden — who is leading the new initiative — will visit the Community College of Allegheny County West Hills Center.

The president and vice president will highlight New Century Careers, a non-profit consortium in which Pittsburgh-area employers work with local community colleges to develop apprenticeship programs.

In addition, Obama and Biden will be interviewed by CBS News.

House Republicans say they have a job training bill designed to streamline existing and overlapping federal programs, but their plan is languishing in the Democratic-run Senate.

The GOP proposals would be "more effective in helping out-of-work Americans get the training they need and the good-paying jobs they want," said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.