SNOW HILL - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards returned to his small-town roots Friday to announce an $8 billion effort to make college education more affordable and accessible for students who are willing to work part time.

Based on a pilot program at Greene Central High School, which serves a rural area in Eastern North Carolina, Edwards said his effort would make college opportunities more broadly available.

"It's about making sure more young people have the opportunities that are now available in Greene County," Edwards told hundreds of students and parents crowded into a high school gym for graduation ceremonies.

In 2005, Edwards initiated a privately funded "College for Everyone" program that covers the cost of tuition, fees and books at a public college for one year. In exchange, students must work at least 10 hours a week while in college, take college preparatory courses in high school and stay out of trouble.

The program has increased the rate of students from Greene Central High --which has a 62 percent minority population -- going to college from 54 percent to 74 percent.

Among the 125 students going to college this fall as part of the Edwards program is Chikera Shackleford, who intends to study nursing at Winston-Salem State University. Shackleford, the senior class president, said she could have afforded college without the scholarship. But she said that was not true of many of her friends.

"This is very helpful," Shackleford said. "Many of my friends would not be going to college without the program."

Randy Bledsoe, the school's principal, said: "It has made a tremendous difference for our students in being able to see a life beyond Greene County. Children now see there are chances for them to go to college. For some of our kids, what held them back was the ability to pay."

The program costs $300,000 per year at Greene Central High School; the Edwards campaign said it would cost $8 billion to take his education program nationwide. The Edwards campaign said $5 billion could be offset through savings in the way student loans are administered. Edwards is proposing to overhaul the student loan program so that loans are made by the U.S. Department of Education rather than by banks.

Edwards has been offering more specific policy proposals than any other Democratic presidential candidate. But the costs of the programs are beginning to add up. The Associated Press calculated that with the education initiative, the price tag for Edwards' proposals is now $125 billion per year.

To finance his proposal for universal health care, Edwards proposed rolling back the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 per year.

Edwards has also proposed a windfall profits tax for oil companies. He said he is also looking at other sources of revenue, including the capital gains tax.

"I worry about what I see is a discrepancy between the way we tax capital gains and the way we tax ordinary work income," Edwards said. "On the other hand, we also have to be sure that capital remains in America because there are places like Greene County where we need capital investment."