American Council On Education

American Council On Education, a tax-exempt nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, serves as a prime contractor providing higher education assessment, course accreditation, and college credit recommendation services to federal agencies across the military, civilian, and homeland-security sectors on a full-and-open, non-set-aside basis. ACE holds no set-aside certifications and competes in the open market exclusively; all 579 recent awards in the source carry no set-aside designation.

ACE's core federal capability centers on evaluating military, professional, and federal agency training programs to translate learning experiences into college credit recommendations, course accreditation, curriculum validation, and transcript services. Representative work includes a $25.5 million definitive contract with the Defense Human Resources Activity (DHRA) for the Military Training Evaluation Program (MTEP) running through March 31, 2030, under which ACE evaluates service-member learning outcomes and aims to double outcome impacts by 2029; a $498.1 million firm fixed-price definitive contract with the Transportation Security Administration for the Academic Credit for Training (ACT) program running through October 31, 2027, covering virtual learning evaluation, credit recommendations, and unlimited digital transcript services; and a $460 thousand multi-year definitive contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to review Emergency Management Institute courses at 60 courses per year across the base and four option periods through March 14, 2027. ACE also manages a $250 thousand single-award Indefinite Delivery Contract awarded by Customs and Border Protection on September 30, 2026, and a $331.2 thousand single-award BPA with the Department of Veterans Affairs Strategic Acquisition Center running through August 25, 2029, both for college credit recommendation services.

Customer concentration is heavily skewed toward the Department of the Navy and its sub-commands. The Navy accounts for 163 awards (the Navy Bureau of Naval Personnel alone carries 35 awards valued at $19.2 million, and Naval Education and Training Command carries 13 awards valued at $7.7 million), representing the single largest customer by both volume and dollars. The Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons follows with 32 awards, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency Preparedness Section accounts for 29 awards. ACE serves 72 distinct federal agencies in total, but the top five customers (Navy Bureau of Naval Personnel, Navy Naval Education and Training Command, DOJ Bureau of Prisons Central Office, DHS Customs and Border Protection with 25 awards and $5.4 million potential value, and FEMA) anchor 26% of combined potential value. ACE's customer mix includes extensive work with Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, Defense Media Activity, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Agency for International Development, and multiple Defense Washington Headquarters Service customers.

ACE holds five named parent indefinite delivery vehicles. The largest by task-order count is Indefinite Delivery Contract N0014004D0005 under the Navy, which carries 13 task orders valued at $1.6 million combined. Basic Ordering Agreement N0061286D0266 (Navy) carries 12 task orders, and IDC HSBP1016D00017 (Homeland Security) carries 11 task orders valued at $275 thousand. BOA N0061288D0319 (Navy) and IDC 70B06C21D00000016 (Defense) round out the top five vehicles with 10 and 9 task orders respectively.

Award volume declined year over year from 2022 through 2025, dropping from eight awards in 2022 to four in 2025, with a slight uptick to seven awards in 2026. This trajectory suggests either selective focus on larger-value awards or reduced procurement activity. Eleven awards with combined potential value of $1.5 million face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and therefore represent recompete exposure.

Across SCI-reportable federal service contracts above the $150 thousand threshold (a partial view excluding goods, products, and non-federal revenue), ACE invoiced $14.8 million in prime-contract revenue across FY2022–FY2025, with FY2022 and FY2024 each delivering $4.6 million, FY2023 at $3.9 million, and FY2025 (partial year) at $1.6 million. The SCI dataset shows roughly 13.5 FTEs in FY2022, 12.4 FTEs in FY2023, 21.0 FTEs in FY2024, and 3.9 FTEs in FY2025 delivered to federal customers on SCI-reportable work. On federal services contracts captured in SCI, government-paid hourly rates ran a median of $152.99/hr, ranging from $42.16/hr at the 10th percentile to $187.24/hr at the 90th percentile. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors accounted for an average of 12% of contractor hours, with five named subcontractors engaged in support roles.

ACE maintains two named grant-program relationships. The Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs funded a cooperative agreement awarded April 1, 2024, running through March 31, 2026, for a program featuring five event topics including science and technology cooperation, STEM graduate education, and student mobility for Japanese higher education leaders and U.S. experts. The Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs funded a project grant to ACE starting August 29, 2022 and running through December 27, 2024, for the IZN Lab, a cohort-based strategic planning process with Ecuadorian universities emphasizing internationalization and innovation.

ACE's capability footprint is concentrated in NAICS 611710 (Educational Support Services), which accounts for 158 of the 579 awards, with secondary concentration in NAICS 611300 (Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools) covering 121 awards. PSC coding mirrors this focus: 155 awards fall under Education/Training-General, 70 under Education/Training-Certifications/Accreditations for Educational Institutions, 53 under Books and Pamphlets, and 34 each under Education/Training-Vocational/Technical and Education/Training-Other.