President Trump’s new budget proposes eliminating Job Corps, the six-decade-old, taxpayer-funded vocational education initiative.
The White House budget describes Job Corps as a “failed experiment to help America’s youth — and, in some cases, has harmed them.”
The budget references reports that the program has been “plagued by a culture of violence, assault, sex crimes, drug infractions and death.”
Founded in 1964, Job Corps is intended to help people ages 16 through 24 improve the quality of their lives through vocational and academic training that is focused on gainful employment and career pathways.
But in recent years, the government program, which spends nearly $2 billion on residential Job Corps campuses, has been rife with reports of violent crimes, low graduation rates, and ballooning costs per student.
A 2017 Government Accountability Office report showed that there have been about 50,000 reported safety violations and 265 deaths in just 10 years of the program.
Last week, a Department of Labor transparency report described how the program appears to be crumbling.
“Taxpayers deserve to know the facts and outcomes of their multibillion-dollar investment,” said acting Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training Lori Frazier Bearden. “This report underscores the department’s commitment to program transparency and accountability – both of which are essential for effective oversight, informed policymaking, and maintaining public trust.”
According to the Labor Department, in program year 2023, an average of 32% of enrollees graduated through Job Corps’ traditional program. That same year, an average of 38% of its enrollees graduated through its Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) criteria.
WIOA enrollees are those who do not complete the program but receive a high school diploma and/or complete the requirements of a career technical training program.
The average cost per enrollee, regardless of their stay length, is nearly $50,000, and the average cost per student per year is more than $80,000.
The average cost of a traditional graduate is more than $187,000, and the cost for a WIOA graduate is more than $155,000.
Despite the cost to educate the students, according to the report, Job Corps participants earn $16,695 annually on average, post-separation.
The White House said, “Not only is Job Corps financially unsustainable, with an exorbitant per-graduate cost (some centers spend more than $400,000 per graduate), it fails to give young people the start they need in their careers.”
