New Collar Jobs Act of 2025

This bill aims to grow the cybersecurity workforce and help communities that need these skills. It encourages employers to train workers, helps some cybersecurity workers with student loans, boosts scholarships, and rewards businesses that invest in training when they bid on big federal contracts. Lawmakers point to rising cyber risks in modern factories as a key reason for action.

Key points

• Employers: Could get a 50% tax credit for what they spend to help employees earn approved cybersecurity certificates or degrees, up to $5,000 per worker, based on the national NICE cybersecurity job framework.
• Cybersecurity workers with federal student loans: If you work in a cybersecurity job in an economically distressed area for most of your work hours and make 36 straight monthly payments, you could get up to $25,000 of your remaining loans canceled. Teaching cybersecurity also counts as qualifying work.
• Students and teachers: The bill calls on the National Science Foundation to double the number of federal cyber scholarships by 2026 compared with 2024, and it makes teaching cybersecurity an allowed service path. It also removes a rule that previously gave priority to placing scholars in federal jobs.
• Community colleges and training programs: Encourages at least a 10% funding increase by 2026 (over 2024 levels) for the NSF’s Advanced Technological Education programs in IT and cybersecurity.
• Federal contractors: Businesses that have claimed the new training credit within the past three years would get a 5% scoring boost on competitive proposals for federal contracts over $5 million, for solicitations issued after the bill becomes law.

When it would start: Most pieces would apply after the bill becomes law; the student loan help requires making 36 payments after enactment, and the contract scoring change applies to solicitations issued after enactment .