Skills-Based Federal Contracting Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Ms. MACE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from South Carolina for yielding time. Mr. Timmons is doing an excellent job managing floor time today.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of our bill, the Skills- Based Federal Contracting Act. The price of admission should not be a 4-year college degree.

At a hearing I held last Congress in the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, a witness from IBM testified that Federal contractors are rarely able to place an individual without a 4-year degree on a technology services contract, regardless of their qualifications. This problem extends beyond technology and service contracts.

Across the Federal Government, many contract solicitations include unnecessary degree requirements, mandating individuals who perform various tasks hold specific education credentials such as 4-year college degrees.

The Federal Government spends hundreds of billions of dollars outsourcing work to millions of contractors to perform the functions of government. This immense purchasing power shapes the entire labor market.

When we embed unnecessary degree requirements into Federal contracting solicitations, we are not just making a hiring decision; we are sending a signal to the entire economy that a college diploma is a prerequisite for economic opportunity.

With less than 40 percent of Americans holding a 4-year college degree, this creates a paper ceiling where talented Americans are excluded from opportunity, regardless of how qualified they may be, simply because they lack a college degree.

The Skills-Based Federal Contracting Act bill would tear through this paper ceiling by prohibiting the Federal Government from including a minimum educational requirement for proposed contractor personnel in a Federal contract solicitation, unless the contracting officer provides a written justification for why the needs of the agency cannot be met without such requirements.

Think about the immense economic value and economic opportunity created in this country by individuals who didn't finish college. These include Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Steve Jobs. Under onerous degree requirements, it would have been nearly impossible for any of these individuals to have been placed on a government contract.

Across the private sector, we have seen companies move to phase out or even eliminate degree requirements, recognizing a college degree does not serve as an effective proxy for competence or skills. It is far past time the Federal Government follows suit.

This bill in no way tells private companies how to hire or who to hire. Rather, it removes unnecessary Federal restrictions on their ability to hire the best qualified Americans who acquired their skills through alternative pathways.

In some cases, required education credentials are warranted. For example, we expect a doctor to have a medical degree, but only a small fraction of Federal contract work falls into these types of categories.

In the case that it does, this bill would simply require a brief justification in writing from a contracting officer before they exclude over 60 percent of American workers who do not have a 4-year degree from the chance to compete.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the lead Democratic cosponsor of this bill, Representative Krishnamoorthi, for joining me in this effort.

Skills-based hiring has been a rare area of widespread bipartisan and nonpartisan support in Congress. The Skills-Based Federal Contracting Act passed out of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on an enormously bipartisan basis by a vote of 44-0.

Together, we can provide all Americans, regardless of whether they studied classic literature in ivory towers, with economic opportunity and the chance to work on behalf of their fellow citizens serving our country.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support this commonsense, nonpartisan bill.

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