In April, the Labor Department’s own inspector general starkly concluded that “Job Corps could not demonstrate beneficial job training outcomes.”
The labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, who oversees Job Corps, is the latest in a succession of federal officials, starting in the Reagan administration, who has vowed to overhaul the program. Job Corps, Mr. Acosta said in an email, “requires fundamental reform.”
“It is not enough to make changes at the margins,” he added. “We need large-scale changes.”
Job Corps — from which two million students have graduated since it was started — boasts some inspiring success stories among the 50,000 students who enroll every year. Two-thirds of them high school dropouts, the students train for more than 100 trades, including welding, automotive repair, plumbing, electrical work and the hospital and hospitality industries.
But at a cost to taxpayers of $15,000 to $45,000 per student, it was a ripe target for President Trump’s proposed budget cuts. This year, he unsuccessfully tried to cut funding for the program, which principally serves black and Hispanic youths, despite his pledge that job training and reducing minority unemployment were his top priorities.
