Ohio Senator introduces new legislation to make it easier for workers without 4-year college degrees to get federal jobs

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced the introduction of legislation to make it easier for workers without 4-year college degrees, including veterans, to get federal jobs, and to promote hiring based on workers’ skills rather than the degree they attain.

Brown said the Federal Jobs for STARs Act would make federal jobs more accessible for non-degree-holders by taking steps to reduce or remove unnecessary educational requirements and making it easier for Ohioans to search on USAJOBS.com for jobs that match their experience and skills.

“If you can do the job, you should be eligible for it – whether or not you have a 4-year degree,” said Brown. “We need to remove unnecessary educational requirements, and fight the idea that a bachelor’s degree is the only way to develop valuable job skills. Our bill would create more opportunities for skilled, experienced Ohioans who have gone to community college or a trade school, who have on-the-job experience, or who have served in the military.”

In Ohio, nearly 70 percent of workers do not have a bachelor’s degree, yet many are skilled through alternative routes, including military service, apprenticeships, training programs, community college, or on-the-job experience. Brown says these workers are often left behind and excluded by blanket bachelor’s degree requirements and hiring algorithms that unfairly give preference to candidates with 4-year degrees, regardless of the kind of work involved and the specific skills needed to do it.

Specifically, the Federal Jobs for STARs Act of 2024 would:

• Remove educational requirements from federal civil service jobs except for positions where OPM determines they are necessary;

• Require the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to improve transparency and directives to federal agencies regarding how to evaluate alternative qualifications to educational attainment;

• Direct OPM to review the addition of degree requirements to federal jobs during their audits of hiring actions at federal agencies;

• Streamline the job search functionality on USAJOBS to more easily filter for positions available to workers who are skilled through alternative routes other than college; and

• Direct the Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to conduct a feasibility study regarding resources required to establish a program (e.g., fellowship, apprenticeship, tuition assistance, etc.) to provide STAR employees with pathways for acquiring further training and higher education if the employee chooses to pursue them.

Full text of the Federal Jobs for STARs Act can be found here .

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