COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald on Wednesday unveiled a plan to make college more affordable for Ohioans and bolster access to higher education.

In a news conference at Columbus State Community College, FitzGerald, a Democrat and the Cuyahoga County executive, said the plan is intended to address challenges students and their families have to meet the growing costs of tuition.

Meeting those challenges is important, he said, if Ohio intends to compete with other states.

"The jobs of the 21st century are going to be filled by people who have training past high school," he said.

A key component in his plan would be a program to create savings accounts for kindergarten students across the state that could be used later to pay for college tuition. The program would be patterned after one he implemented in Cuyahoga County this year, which deposits $100 of public money into each account.

The public money could only be used on college expenses. The goal, FitzGerald said, is to help people to start saving for college early and to foster a sense at and early age that college is something to aspire to.

Under the Cuyahoga Count program, if money is unused the $100 will be returned to the county, and any additional contributions will be released to whomever made them.

FitzGerald kicked off the program last month. It initially was meant to launch last fall. But questions from county council over the program's overhead costs contributed to the program being delayed. About $522,000 of the annual $2 million program is budgeted to be spent on administrative costs.

The Democratic candidate said he believes the savings program could be paid for in the existing state budget, but that it needs to be made a priority. But he noted that the savings program in Cuyahoga County didn't require a tax increase to cover the cost.

That savings account program cost about $2 million to implement, he said. "That's one-tenth of the state," he said. Based on that, he estimates a statewide savings account program would cost about $20 million.

The biggest expense, he said, would be restoring state funding to universities that has over time been reduced. That would cost about $160 million, he said.

"I'm not proposing raising any taxes. Boom!" he said in response to a question after his news conference.

Republicans weren't buying into that point.

Chris Schrimpf, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, warned in a news release there would be buyers remorse.

"If Ed FitzGerald's track record in Cuyahoga County is any indication of how he would mismanage the state's higher education system, taxpayers and students beware!" Schrimpf said. "Today FitzGerald called for nearly $200 million in new state spending on top of the $2.1 billion he's already proposed with no way to pay for it besides raising taxes."

Other components of the plan FitzGerald outlined Wednesday include helping students refinance their loans at more affordable interest rates and bolstering state support for Ohio's colleges and universities.

The student loan debt is an important issue for Ohio's economy, he said, citing figures from the 2013-2014 school year that Ohio families had more than 742,000 outstanding student loans totaling $3.75 billion.

"What it means is that the money that should be going into our local economy is going straight out of our communities," he said.

He proposes developing an advisory commission to explore options that would allow the state, through the board of regents, to refinance old Ohio student loan debt.

He criticized cuts in state funding for higher education. The current state budget allocated $150 million less toward higher education than in 2007-2008, he said.

Schrimpf, in his response, noted that some of those cuts were actually made during Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland's administration.

Meanwhile, FitzGerald noted, many of Ohio's public universities have either instituted or proposed tuition increases for the 2014-2015 school year.

On one point, he said he is in agreement with Kasich: That is on the need for strong vocational education programs.

In his State of the State speech, Kasich proposed making vocational education available to students as young as the seventh grade as a way to develop job skills for those who don't plan to go to college. He also has touted the role two-year college programs can plan in job training.

FitzGerald, on Wednesday, also discussed the importance of keeping community colleges, technical colleges and vocational programs well funded.

"For many older adults facing the challenge of evolving workplaces, these institutions serve as a critical resource to update their skills and to reconnect with their technical profession," he said in his plan. "For some individuals, the two-year schools are a place to upgrade their academic skills to a level that will enable them to progress toward a bachelor's degree."