Sponsors (4)
The bill increases transparency and data-driven alignment between education and the labor market—helping learners, counselors, and employers—while creating administrative burdens, ongoing costs for taxpayers and states, and risks around data quality, privacy, and provider reputations.
Students, jobseekers, and low-income workers gain free access to a searchable, comparable database of credentials, programs, costs, outcomes, and career pathways, helping them make better education and career decisions.
Counselors, educators, employers, and state workforce planners can use linked, interoperable data and tools to better align training, credentialing, and hiring with labor market needs, improving program relevance and job placement.
State governments receive federal support—including competitive grants (up to $10M for a 3-year repository build) and authorization of funding—to map credentials and build or improve credential repositories, lowering upfront costs for data infrastructure.
State governments, training providers, and higher education institutions must spend staff time and resources to collect, update, and report detailed program and outcome data, creating ongoing administrative burdens.
Taxpayers and state budgets may face new or continuing costs—grants, system builds, maintenance after grants expire, or required local matches—that could increase fiscal pressure or divert funds from other priorities.
Individuals could receive misleading signals about credential value if data quality, employer-use measures, or risk-adjustment are inconsistent, potentially leading to poor education or career choices.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes competitive grants to states to build publicly accessible credential repositories that catalog credentials, providers, quality metrics, and career pathway links.
Official title: To require the Secretary of Labor to establish a grant program for States to improve or establish a credential repository, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 15, 2026 by Lucy Mcbath · Last progress April 15, 2026
Creates a federal grant program to help states build, expand, or improve publicly accessible credential repositories that list every credential, training provider, and program in the State and link them to quality and outcome information. Grants are competitive, limited to one per State for up to three years and $10 million, and funds must be used to create interoperable, open-data systems, public guidance, and tools that help learners, workers, employers, educators, and counselors make informed education and career decisions. Authorizes unspecified amounts for FY2028 with availability through September 30, 2029. The repositories must include program- and credential-level data, adopt data policies, collect certain performance indicators, and allow States to publicize the repository if grant obligations are met.