"This administration is committed to helping any student who wants to attend college pay for it," he added.

Obama's mandatory funding proposals would make available more than $129 billion in new grants, loans, and work-study assistance for postsecondary students in 2010, an increase of $31.7 billion, or 32 percent, over the 2008 level.

Under the proposed budget, Title I would receive $12.9 billion, down from 2009's $14.5 billion, but Title I also received an extra $13 billion in the stimulus act.

Duncan said $1.5 billion of those Title I funds have been directed to other ED priorities, including $500 million for Early Childhood Grants and $300 million for the Early Learning Challenge Fund, both new programs this year. An additional $50 million is intended to help high school graduation rates, which would be used to identify promising practices in dropout prevention.

Federal funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program would drop from $270 million to $100 million, a 63 percent cut, under President Obama's proposed $3.4 trillion budget for fiscal year 2010.