Labor Dept. to suspend Job Corps centers it says puts students in danger, cost taxpayers $1.7B

EXCLUSIVE: The Department of Labor is suspending operations of Job Corps centers crossed the federation aft revelations that the program, which costs taxpayers much than $1.7 cardinal per year, is nary longer achieving its intended outcomes and is putting students successful danger. 

Job Corps primitively was created to assistance young adults physique a pathway to a amended beingness done acquisition and community. But Trump medication officials told Fox News Digital that an "in-depth fiscal investigation and a startling fig of superior incidental reports uncover the programme is not helping students execute intended outcomes oregon keeping them safe." 

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The determination to suspend the programme comes aft the Job Corps transparency study was compiled and released successful April, uncovering that the mean graduation complaint for the programme was conscionable 32%. 

Former Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer, US Labor Secretary nominee for US President Donald Trump, center, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation proceeding successful Washington, DC, US, connected Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025.  (Allison Robbert/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The mean full outgo per postgraduate ranges from $155,600 to $187,653, the study states.  The mean outgo of a four-year assemblage successful the United States is $153,080, according to the Department of Labor. 

Additionally, erstwhile those students determination done the program, the survey recovered that they are mostly being hired successful minimum wage positions, with participants earning $16,695 annually connected mean aft they permission the program.

Currently, determination are astir less than 25,000 students enrolled successful the Job Corps program, and that participants’ information is "often astatine risk." 

Officials said determination were 14,913 superior incidental reports filed successful 2023. In 2023, 373 instances of inappropriate intersexual behaviour and intersexual assaults were reported; 1,764 acts of unit were reported; 1,167 breaches of information oregon information were reported; 2,702 instances of cause usage were reported; and 1,808 infirmary visits for students were reported. 

Trump medication officials told Fox News Digital that the Department of Labor is opening a phased intermission successful operations astatine contractor operated Job Corp centers nationwide, initiating an orderly modulation for students, unit and section communities. 

Dept of Labor building (Getty)

Currently, determination are 123 Job Corps centers crossed the United States. 99 of the centers are tally by contractors administered by the Department of Labor. An authoritative said that those contracts volition beryllium terminated to intermission operations. The remaining 24 centers are tally by USDA and volition not beryllium impacted by the suspension. 

The intermission of operations astatine each contractor-operated Job Corps centers volition hap by June 30. During the transition, the Department of Labor volition collaborate with authorities and section workforce partners to assistance existent students successful advancing their grooming and connecting them with acquisition and employment opportunities.

Once the phased suspension occurs, students volition beryllium connected to different resources and volition beryllium registered wrong the American Job Center closest to their location and the Labor Exchange strategy successful their location states. 

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"Job Corps was created to assistance young adults physique a pathway to a amended beingness done education, training, and community," Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer told Fox News Digital. "However, a startling fig of superior incidental reports and our in-depth fiscal investigation uncover the programme is nary longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve." 

Chavez-DeRemer added: "We stay committed to ensuring each participants are supported done this modulation and connected with the resources they request to win arsenic we measure the program’s possibilities." 

The Jobs Corps outgo taxpayers $1.7 cardinal during fiscal twelvemonth 2025. 

The programme began successful 1964 arsenic portion of erstwhile President Lyndon B. Johnson’s warfare connected poorness nether the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. The programme was intended to springiness young radical from low-income backgrounds a accidental to summation academic, vocational, and societal skills successful a residential setting. 

For programme twelvemonth 2024, Job Corps was operating astatine a $140 cardinal deficit, requiring centers to beryllium paused to prevention astir $119 cardinal to scope the extremity of this programme year. 

 It is projected by DOL officials that successful programme twelvemonth 2025, the shortage would turn to $213 million. 

"The programme has been successful a fiscal situation for years, creating changeless uncertainty for participants and administrators," a DOL authoritative told Fox News Digital. 

The authoritative stressed, though, that the Department of Labor is "not eliminating Job Corps," and stressed that lone Congress has that authority. 

In December 2024, the Biden administration’s Department of Labor instituted a akin intermission successful operations astatine 2 of the Job Corps centers, amid concerns of issues and rising programme costs. 

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Officials said that, astatine this point, the Job Corps programme is financially underwater, and the funds appropriated by Congress for the twelvemonth volition not screen the costs of operations for the remaining programme year.  

Officials said the intermission volition let the section to reassess programme alignment with the Trump administration’s "workforce priorities, projected fund framework, and wide imaginativeness for gathering a modern and effectual workforce improvement programme for America’s youth."