CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The new head of the National Governors Association challenged his colleagues Sunday to increase the ranks of residents in their states who complete some form of college.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin launched a project as incoming NGA chairman that he believes can improve the higher education degree attainment rate in each state by at least 4 percent annually.

An initiative centered on the state-based systems of public two- and four-year colleges and universities appeared the natural choice, Manchin told The Associated Press during an interview before the association's weekend summer meeting in Boston.

“This is an area where we governors can have an impact,” Manchin said. “We pick their board members. We're very much involved in their budgets. We're talking to their presidents continuously. It's an area where we're already engaged.”

Manchin calls his initiative Complete to Compete. He cites estimates that nearly two-thirds of all jobs in the future will require some form of college education, and that the demands of the global economy will require the country to produce an additional 8.2 million college graduates.

“This is about us competing in the 21st century marketplace,” Manchin said. “It comes down to us continuing to be a global power 20, 30, 40 years from now.”

Figures from NGA suggest national college completion rates of 27 percent for community colleges and 55 percent for four-year schools. West Virginia's overall higher education attainment rate is 24 percent, according to the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation for Education.

Lumina helped fund the research by NGA's Center for Best Practices to develop Complete to Compete. With a goal of improving the U.S. attainment rate to 60 percent by 2025, Lumina says the country has fallen behind such global competitors as Canada, Japan and France in this area.

With states still struggling to emerge from the recession, Manchin wants his initiative to prompt them to link their higher education funding to attainment rates.