To amend the Small Business Act to include requirements relating to graduates of career and technical education programs for small business development centers and women’s business centers, and for other purposes.
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Connecting Small Businesses with Career and Technical Education Graduates Act of 2025 adds a Small Business Act definition for career and technical education using the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. It then expands the counseling and training duties of small business development centers. SBDCs must provide small businesses with educational information on hiring graduates from CTE programs and on CTE programs relevant to their hiring needs. SBDCs also must tell CTE programs how students and graduates can use SBDC resources to start and expand a small business concern, and, as appropriate, connect small businesses with CTE programs to help students and graduates identify career opportunities. The bill adds parallel duties for women's business centers, focused on small business concerns owned and controlled by women.
Who Benefits and How
Small businesses, women-owned small businesses, CTE students, CTE graduates, career and technical education programs, small business development centers, women's business centers, local employers, workforce-development staff, and entrepreneurship educators benefit from a clearer bridge between technical training pipelines and small-business hiring or startup support. CTE graduates gain more routes into local jobs or entrepreneurship resources, while small employers gain information about programs that may match their skill needs.
Who Bears the Burden and How
Small business development center counselors, women's business center staff, SBA program managers, CTE program administrators, workforce-development partners, local employer outreach staff, entrepreneurship educators, and center training teams must add CTE hiring information, explain business-startup resources to CTE programs, and create connections between small businesses and CTE students or graduates.
Key Provisions
- Adds a Small Business Act definition of career and technical education using the Perkins Act definition.
- Requires SBDCs to educate small businesses on hiring CTE graduates and using CTE programs for hiring needs.
- Requires SBDCs to inform CTE programs about student and graduate access to SBDC startup and expansion resources.
- Requires SBDCs, as appropriate, to connect small businesses with CTE programs for career opportunities.
- Adds parallel CTE hiring, resource-information, and connection duties for women's business centers serving women-owned small businesses.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Amends the Small Business Act to define career and technical education by reference to the Perkins Act and adds new duties for small business development centers and women's business centers to educate small businesses about hiring CTE graduates, inform CTE programs about entrepreneurship resources, and connect small businesses with CTE programs for student and graduate career opportunities.
Key Policy Areas
Small Business, Workforce Development, Education
Primary Purpose
Amends the Small Business Act to define career and technical education by reference to the Perkins Act and adds new duties for small business development centers and women's business centers to educate small businesses about hiring CTE graduates, inform CTE programs about entrepreneurship resources, and connect small businesses with CTE programs for student and graduate career opportunities.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Small businesses
- Women-owned small businesses
- CTE students
- CTE graduates
- Career and technical education programs
- Small business development centers
- Women's business centers
Identified Costs
- Small business development center counselors
- Women's business center staff
- SBA program managers
- CTE program administrators
- Workforce-development partners
- Local employer outreach staff
- Center training teams
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
Passed HouseReceived; read twice and referred to the Committee on Small …
Passed House (inferred from eh version)
Additional sponsor: Ms. Goodlander
Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the …
Mr. Williams of Texas (for himself, Mr. Olszewski, Mr. Bresnahan, …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Small businesses, Women-owned small businesses
Small business development centers, Women's business centers
On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass
Connecting Small Businesses with Career and Technical Education Graduates Act
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "career_and_technical_education"
- → Career and technical education as defined in section 3 of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006.
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology