One of the country’s largest, oldest, and most expensive job training programs may soon come to an end. 

Job Corps is a program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and on May 29, 2025, DOL officials announced a “phased pause” to the Job Corps program. This came around the same time that the House of Representatives passed a budget that cut the program’s funding from $1.56 billion to $0. 

 “Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,” said DOL Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer in the press release that announced the initial plans to pause funding. “However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve.”

Because Job Corps was established by Congress, only Congress can eliminate the program; however, this new budget, in conjunction with the pause in operations, would effectively shut the program down.

Proponents of Job Corps point to its holistic approach to helping at-risk youths find work and other opportunities. Over the years, hundreds of graduates in Connecticut have gone on to become nurses, work in manufacturing and retail, and fill other roles in the state. 

However, the program’s critics say it is costly, graduation rates are low, and the Job Corps centers endanger the people who go through the program. A transparency report published by DOL officials on April 25 found that less than half of enrollees graduate, and, on average, the program costs taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars per student every year. On top of that, within the last two years, there have been hundreds of “serious incidents” at Job Corps centers in Connecticut, including dozens of assaults, drug-related incidents, serious injuries and illnesses, safety breaches, and one death, according to DOL records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOI) requests. 

Both Job Corps centers in Connecticut, located in Hartford and New Haven, ignored multiple requests for interviews and to answer questions about enrollment, graduation rates, and incidents at the centers. The federal DOL also did not respond to requests for interviews or questions.

The Job Corps program was established in 1964 through the Economic Opportunity Act and was a core part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” The program was intended to provide vocational training, education, work experience, and a living allowance for low-income 16- to 24-year-olds at no cost to the enrollees. And for many of those students, the centers have also been their source of food and shelter.

On average, around 50,000 students are enrolled annually at 123 centers across the country; however, the DOL stopped enrolling new students in March of this year, which has halved the number of students in 2025. 

The two centers in Connecticut are the Hartford Job Corps Academy and the New Haven Job Corps Center. In the program year 2023, which stretched from July 1, 2023, until June 30, 2024, there were 247 and 202 students enrolled in these centers, respectively. 

This program year, only 181 students were enrolled in the Hartford center, according to comments made by the Director Kevin McKee at a press conference on June 7. New Haven Center Director Juvenel Levros did not say how many students were enrolled at his center, but he did say that, as of early June, there were around 140 enrollees living there. 

This Job Corps press conference was organized by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy in response to ongoing efforts to defund the program. 

The “phased pause” order was almost immediately challenged in court, and, on June 4, a federal judge with the New York District Court issued an injunction ordering funding to continue while the legal battle plays out. 

The New Haven Job Corp Center and the Hartford Job Corp Academy are still operating while the case makes its way through court. 

One of the most controversial accusations DOL officials leveled against Job Corps centers in making the “phased pause” was that they are dangerous for the young people who enroll in them. 

The DOL reports that, nationwide, 14,913 “serious incident reports” were filed for infractions that occurred in 2023. This includes 372 instances of Inappropriate Sexual Behavior and Sexual Assaults, 1,167 breaches of safety and security, 1,764 acts of violence, and 2,702 reports of drug use. 

Between January 1, 2023, and June 9, 2025, 399 serious incidents were reported at the Connecticut Job Corps centers alone. This includes five reported sexual assaults, 32 assaults, 48 breaches of safety and security, 52 serious illnesses and injuries, and 76 drug-related incidents. On top of this, one student at the Hartford Job Corp Academy requested personal time off from the center and then killed themselves during this time period. 

During this same period of time, the Hartford Police Department responded to 51 calls from the Hartford Job Corps Academy and opened 15 cases in response to these phone calls, according to police logs. These cases included four assaults, one larceny, two threatening/harassing, one animal complaint, and one incident where a juvenile went missing for less than a day. Inside Investigator was not able to confirm the number of police reports made at the New Haven Job Corps location, nor the number of cases that were opened as a result. 

Despite all of this, only seven “Incident(s) Involving Law Enforcement” were reported in both the Hartford and New Haven Job Corps centers during this period.

It is not clear if each report refers to a distinct event, and the DOL did not respond to questions about this. 

Several of these incidents could fall into overlapping categories. For example, on May 9, 2023, a student was caught snorting a white powdered substance in a bathroom at the Hartford Job Corp Academy. The student confessed to snorting phencyclidine, or PCP, which is a dissociative drug that can trigger violent hallucinations. This student was kicked out of the program three days later. This was classified as a “Breach of Security/Safety,” but it may also count as a “Drug Related Incident.”

The narrative that the DOL officials put forth—that Job Corps is unsafe for students—is nuanced. 

Many of the “Serious Illness/Injuries” that occurred at the Connecticut Job Corps centers during this time were a result of accidents, such as slipping on wet grass during rain or getting injured while playing basketball, or involved some degree of pre-existing medical condition. At least eight reports of “Serious Illnesses” involved students who were having mental health crises. One of the “Breach of Security/Safety” reports involved a student who smuggled a needle into the New Haven Job Corps Center after a doctor’s appointment so she could hurt herself with it. Another student at the Hartford center was sent to a hospital after telling an instructor that he “wanted to hurt someone, and was unable to do so.”

Almost all of these incidents were perpetrated by students. 

The Sexual Assaults range from groping to allegations of rape. In one incident, a student was accosted and groped after leaving the showers. Another student had her breast bitten by a peer while they were waiting in line for food at the cafeteria. In both of those instances, the perpetrators were terminated within days of the offenses.

There was one instance where a student who had been given over-the-counter medication from the Hartford Academy’s Wellness Center believed he had been “touched in the wrong way” when he was asleep. The student reported he “experienced pain along with some irregularities on his body” when he woke up. Both his legal guardian and the Department of Children and Families (DCF) were notified, and the boy was sent to a hospital to be evaluated. A local detective tried to follow up with the student to investigate the report, but at that point, he had left the center with a “Medical Separations with Reinstatement Rights” status.

There were two reports of alleged sexual assault that took place off-campus. One incident happened at an Airbnb and the other at a student’s apartment. In both cases, the text describing the case was cut off in the document shared with Inside Investigator.  

Most of the time, threats and harassment were made against other students, although there were also dozens of cases where staff members were on the receiving end. At least nine incidents involved students threatening staff members, and there were at least four instances of people who were not a part of the Job Corps program entering the campus without authorization. 

Students were almost always kicked out of Job Corps if a fact-finding board finds them guilty of certain offenses, like assaults and breaches of safety.

There is one exception that Inside Investigator found: In March 2023, an unnamed student was harassing a peer at the Hartford Job Corp Academy and trying to intimidate them to learn information about a former student. The student perpetrator was also harassing the former student. After investigating the incident, a fact-finding board recommended that the perpetrator be terminated from the program, but the Center Director at the time disagreed. According to documents from the DOL, “additional information regarding the incident came forth during the meeting between the center director and the perpetrator. Based on the additional information, the center director decided to retain the perpetrator.” The report did not state what that additional information was, only that the perpetrator was penalized with “mandatory restriction,” community service hours, and had to apologize to the person they were harassing. 

There is no direct media contact for Job Corps, on a national or local level. The two Connecticut centers, which are run by contractors, do not have media contacts. Not only that, the DOL does not publish direct lines to any employees at either of the Connecticut facilities. 

At one point, an operator from the New Haven Job Corps Center hung up on a reporter from Inside Investigator before any questions were even asked. Inside Investigator left multiple messages with individuals at the Job Corps Centers and sent emails with detailed questions to an employee at the Hartford center. Those questions were forwarded to the DOL. 

In an interview with Inside Investigator, Senator Blumenthal said he did not know any details about the death that occurred in Hartford, but he did say he was aware of security concerns. 

“Young people at the centers feel they’re safe. Staff who work there feel they’re safe. I’ve seen incident reports, and certainly they need and deserve attention,” Blumenthal said.  “Speaking realistically, these at-risk young people present issues that certainly need attention, and security is an area where there has to be more work done.”

Job Corps’ proponents, like Senator Blumenthal, say the program prepares people to work in critical industries, but graduates are few and far between.

There are two types of Job Corps graduates: people who complete an entire program, or “traditional graduates,” which means that they enter the workforce or an apprenticeship, pursue higher education, or join the military; and people who meet the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act’s (WIOA) definition. The WIOA funds the Job Corps and considers anyone who has passed a milestone in the program a graduate. Those milestones can include a “traditional” graduation, earning a high school diploma or GED, or completing a career technical training course. 

Nationally, in the program year 2023, only 39% of enrollees graduated by the WIOA standard, according to the most recent transparency report. In Hartford, there were 247 enrollees in the program year 2023, and 53 of them graduated by the WIOA standards. That same year, the New Haven center had 202 enrollees, and 73 who graduated by the WIOA standards. 

This translates to a traditional graduation rate of 21% in Hartford and 36% in New Haven. Although this is below the national average, New Haven is considered the fifth-best Job Corps center in the country, Levros said at the press conference on June 7.

The rest of the students—the vast majority—either remained in the program that year, left willingly without graduating, or were kicked out.

“The same question can be asked of any educational institution: Is there a benefit to people who don’t graduate? And the answer is yes, I think so,” Senator Blumenthal told Inside Investigator in an interview in September. “And the graduation rate is comparable to community colleges.”

Most colleges report graduation rates by intervals of four or six years.

In Connecticut, only 19% of students who enrolled in community colleges in 2020 graduated with an associate’s or bachelor’s degree by Spring 2024. An additional 13% of students who enrolled in 2020 transferred to other schools. 

The four-year graduation rate at the University of Connecticut (UConn) was 73% in 2024, and the six-year graduation rate was 84%. 

The national average is much lower: only 49% of full-time students who started school in 2017 completed a bachelor’s degree in four years at a four-year institution, while 65% completed a degree in six years. This data includes for-profit and non-accredited institutions.  

Job Corps’ defenders will note that, historically, graduation rates have been higher. In its rebuke of the most recent Job Corps transparency report, the National Job Corps Association (NJCA) claims that the national graduation rate before the COVID-19 pandemic was above 60%.

Even among graduates, however, the financial returns are at the poverty line. In its transparency report, the DOL tracked the average annual salary of recent graduates. The Hartford graduates earned an average of $14,957 a year, and the New Haven graduates earned $17,385 a year. In 2023, the poverty level for a single-person household was $14,580 a year. Now it is $15,650 for an individual and $21,150 for a family of two. 

Job Corps’ defenders claim that it is a life-changing program. 

“It’s a multi decade old, old program that has accomplished a lot,” Blumenthal said. “It still needs improvement, and it’s important to the young people whose lives are transformed.”

At the June 7 press conference, Levros read a testimony from a New Haven Job Corps Center graduate named Jason Stillwell. According to that testimony, before Stillwell came to Job Corps, he says he was couch surfing and partying to cope with an unstable home life. He lived at the center, earned a certified nursing aid (CNA) certificate, then went on to get an associate’s and a bachelor’s degree from Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). He worked as a critical care nurse for eight years before returning to school and earning a master’s degree from the Yale School of Nursing in May 2025. 

“I run into employers all the time who say they need more people with the right skills and training to fill jobs that are open right now,” Blumenthal said. “We have a shortage of certain skills in the state that these young people can fill.”

In 2023, the Connecticut Department of Labor reported that there were around 66,000 job openings in the state. This includes thousands of vacancies in nursing positions and the manufacturing industry.

In a good year, a few hundred people graduate from Job Corps in Connecticut. By the end of the 2023 program year, only 126 students graduated. 

Some of these students go on to work essential jobs in the state, like Stillwell, but not every graduate goes into a critical industry.

The Hartford Job Corp Academy offers CNA and manufacturing certificates, but it also has direct relationships with employers like Walmart and Marshalls, McKee said at the June 7 press conference. 

And some students don’t get jobs at all. Of the 126 graduates in the 2023 program year, 23 of them didn’t meet the “traditional” definition, meaning they may have earned a certificate or a GED, but they did not enter the workforce. The other 103 students may have gone on to higher education or may have left the state for work.

Education isn’t cheap— and that’s true for both college and vocational training.

 “If you look at you know the actual expense involved, I think it’s about $50,000… “ Blumental said, “community colleges don’t usually include meals and housing, so if you adjust for that expense, it’s comparable to community college costs.”

On average, it costs around $5,000 to be a full-time student at a community college in Connecticut. However, universities like the University of Connecticut charge in-state students $21,000 for tuition and university fees. If a student wants to live at UConn, they will have to pay between $36,000 and $40,000, depending on their health insurance coverage. 

It is hard to tell how much it costs to support a Job Corps student. In 2017, the DOL introduced a new methodology to estimate the costs of each enrollee. The DOL calculates the cost of supporting an enrollee by dividing the total expenditures at a facility, including the costs of running facilities, faculty wages, educational material, and room and board expenses, by the number of students who enrolled at the start of the program year. Similarly, the DOL estimates the cost per graduate by dividing the total expenses of a facility by the number of students who graduate. 

The average cost to the taxpayer for a student at a Job Corps nationally was slightly under $50,000, regardless of graduation status, during the program year 2023. Taxpayers pay $155,000 per year for every student who meets the WIOA definition and $187,000 per year for every student who completes the entire program.

Taxpayers spend between $275,000 and $324,000 for each graduate at the Hartford center. In New Haven, taxpayers spend $153,000 and $193,000 per graduate. Since most students don’t graduate, and the average stay of time for all students is only seven and a half months, the average enrollee costs taxpayers $59,000 in Hartford and $55,000 in New Haven during program year 2023. 

The longer a student is enrolled, the more expensive it becomes to support them. This is in part because their allowance increases after 182 days, or around six months, in the program. 

It takes an average of 13.5 months for people enrolled in Job Corps to graduate using the traditional method. Most students stay for half that amount of time—they either leave the program voluntarily or are kicked out.  

But the National Job Corps Association says that these dollar amounts are misleading. The cost of enrolling students has increased “almost entirely due to Covid-19 restrictions,” which limit the number of students centers are allowed to serve. Some of these restrictions are still in place. 

From July 2017 to June 2018, the average cost for an enrollee in Hartford was more than $33,000 a year, and taxpayers spent $61,000 for every graduate, while in New Haven, the costs were $51,000 and $88,000, respectively. 

Almost all of the Job Corps centers in the country—99 out of 123—are run by private contractors. The reports from the DOL do not include specific breakdowns in price, including how much money is allocated to salaries, COVID-related costs, or other expenses that may remain consistent, regardless of the number of students. The other 24 centers are managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and would remain open, even if the DOL defunds Job Corps.

Job Corps centers are not only institutions that have gotten more expensive over time. A student who wanted to study 12 or more credits a semester at UConn’s Storrs Campus would have had to pay around $7,500 in tuition for the 2017-2018 academic year—around one-third the cost of tuition today.

“The reason we have the Job Corps is because there are young people with really challenging backgrounds and issues,” Blumenthal said. “They’re at risk, and they haven’t succeeded in traditional educational settings. So there needs to be more services, and the cost may be somewhat higher.”

Unlike universities or colleges, which derive portions of their funding from endowments and donations, and where students typically pay into their own education, Job Corps is completely funded by taxpayers. In 2023, the Hartford center cost taxpayers $14 million, while the New Haven center cost taxpayers $11 million. The DOL transparency report did not provide a more detailed breakdown of those expenses.

Job Corps programs have been over budget for years. In program year 2024, there was a $140 million operating deficit, which forced many centers to pause operations altogether. In the end, only $119 million was saved during the pause in the last program year.

If Job Corps facilities run until the end of 2025, it will cost an estimated $1.7 billion, with an estimated $213 million deficit. 

In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Preparing Americans for High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future.” This order emphasized the importance of apprenticeships in helping people find “secure, well-paying, and high-need American jobs” and transparency in job training programs. A month later, the DOL announced the “phased pause” for Job Corps. Exactly one month after that decision, officials announced the Department had distributed almost $84 million in grants to support Registered Apprenticeship Programs. 

DOL officials did not respond to questions about why they are supporting Registered Apprenticeship Programs, but not Job Corps. 

Blumenthal called the apprenticeship programs a “positive addition” to the job market. There are existing programs that already operate in the state, although none of them have received money in the most recent rounds of grants from the DOL.  But Registered Apprenticeships need to work in conjunction with—and not as a replacement for—Job Corps, he said. 

“There are improvements that are necessary, but it’s not a reason to shut down the program, as the Labor Department wants to. It’s the philosophy of mend, not end,” Blumenthal said. “It’s results so far indicate that it is certainly worth reinforcing and strengthening security, along with the services that are provided. It’s not only a policing problem.”

Blumenthal is hoping that in the coming months, Congress will be able to pass a budget that includes “robust funding” for the Job Corps program. 

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