Allowing Contractors to Choose Employees for Select Skills Act

Floor Speech

I rise in support of H.R. 7887, the ACCESS Act, which is intended to address degree inflation, the growing trend of college graduates filling jobs that don't require college degrees. This can lead to reduced earnings for college degree holders, reduced employment opportunities for nondegree holders, and an overall drag on the economy in a time of very low unemployment, like ours, and of labor shortages.

Committee Democrats are supportive of efforts to eliminate minimum education and experience requirements for jobs that don't actually require such associated skills for successful performance, expanding opportunity for the more than 62 percent of the population, age 25 and older, who do not hold a bachelor's degree.

The ACCESS Act would prohibit Federal agencies from specifying minimum educational requirements for contractor personnel in solicitations, unless the solicitation also includes a written justification explaining why such requirements are actually necessary.

I had been concerned that this might create a blanket requirement that could be unnecessarily burdensome for Federal agencies in the instances in which minimum education or experience requirements are commonly and reasonably understood to be necessary, but changes made to the bill after our committee markup have alleviated those concerns.

There are certainly some jobs for which some minimum education or experience appears to be totally unnecessary. For example, approximately 39 percent of postings for construction managers require a college degree, as do 52 percent of web developer postings and 34 percent of distribution manager postings.

This suggests that these roles are frequently performed in the economy totally successfully without a college degree and that the requirement is more about the subjective preference or traditions of the employer than the actual demands of the job. It makes sense for agency contracting officers to have to provide a written justification for choosing to require that contractors hire only college degree holders for such jobs, as this bill would require.

However, there are also an array of jobs for which some minimum education or experience requirements are indeed necessary. For example, in 2022, the Federal Government spent almost $30 billion on medical services contracts and another $29 billion on engineering and technical support services contracts. We do not want our contracting officers to have to provide a written explanation every single time they put out a solicitation that requires healthcare and engineering professionals to have advanced higher education degrees, and the bill has been appropriately and gratefully refined to eliminate this unnecessary burden.

I understand that the North America's Building Trades Unions have expressed concerns about just this point, but in cases where highly trained and educated Federal contractors are required to perform technical, scientific, and professional services, nothing in the bill would prevent the hiring of such individuals.

I am happy to continue supporting this legislation as an important step to expand opportunity to more Americans and to welcome more talent in service to our country.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support H.R. 7887, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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