Washington — President Obama’s plan to create a $2.5-billion grant program for states that increase college-completion rates will “invite the same kind of controversy that attends No Child Left Behind,” a key Democrat in Congress predicted today.

“It will be perceived as an intrusion into decisions usually left to faculty and governing boards,” said Rep. Timothy Bishop of New York, a former provost of Long Island University’s Southampton College, at the Career College Association’s annual public-policy forum here. “It will be contentious, so we’ll see how it plays out.”

Mr. Bishop serves on the U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee and is among the chamber’s most active members on higher-education issues. When the committee set about crafting the education portions of the House’s economic-stimulus bill recently, the committee’s chairman, Rep. George Miller of California, put Mr. Bishop in charge.

Mr. Bishop also said he would support proposed changes in the formula used to distribute campus-based aid, provided that colleges that have benefited from the current formula do not receive a cut. The congressman opposed a formula change the last time that Congress considered it, about five years ago.

“We need to increase funding over all,” he said, explaining that he did not want to solve one problem but create another. Mr. Obama’s budget would increase funds for Perkins loans from $1-billion to $5-billion while changing the formula to reward colleges that control costs and expand need-based aid.

Mr. Obama has not yet said how much money he would provide for the two other campus-based programs, Federal Work-Study and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants. —Kelly Field