With a goal to expand financial aid and college access, the Obama administration unveiled a 2010 education budget plan Thursday that virtually guarantees future Pell Grant increases while creating a major new initiative on college completion.

To support the president’s goal to significantly increase college completion by 2020, the budget includes a new $2.5-billion Access and Completion Incentive Fund for states with innovative strategies to improve the college graduation rates for low-income students. In his address to Congress this week, Obama pledged that the United States would “again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”

In presenting the new budget on Thursday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said aid and access are among the administration’s key domestic policy themes. “There are too many students who are unprepared for college and too many who cannot afford it,” he said.

Also included in the budget is a restructuring of the Pell Grant program to provide guaranteed increases each year. Within the federal budget, the program would move from a discretionary program — subject to annual appropriations from Congress — to a mandatory program similar to Social Security or Medicare.

“This means [the funding] is guaranteed for everyone who qualifies,” Duncan said in outlining the initiative to reporters.

If Congress approves the change, the Pell Grant also would receive annual increases geared to the Consumer Price Index, plus an additional 1 percent. Duncan said the department envisions a top grant of $5,550 in 2010.

With mandatory funding, the program would no longer face shortfalls that occur when more students than expected seek grants. These shortfalls traditionally increase during tough economic times, when more students attend or return to college.

The program “has been plagued by funding shortfalls that complicate the federal appropriations process and threaten the funding of other federal education programs,” the department’s budget plan states.