President Barack Obama's American Graduation Initiative, the pledge of $12 billion for America's community colleges over a 10-year span, delighted Maryland officials because the state's community-college enrollment is growing at more than 4 percent a year while public and personal budgets are shrinking. With 16 community colleges serving the state's 23 counties and Baltimore, community colleges are a high priority in Maryland. Maryland community colleges work together to respond to the state's education and economic needs. Maryland's public higher education system allows schools and their students to clear operational hurdles fast and outpace many states in serving the nearly 500,000 people who take courses at one of the state's community colleges each year. Most counties have a public community college, no private colleges and only one public school system. In addition, all of the state's four-year public universities, except two, are part of the University System of Maryland. With one policy covering most of the state's four-year colleges, the university system and the 16 community colleges have developed one of the nation's best transfer relationships.