How cuts to the nation's trade school could put vulnerable young people at risk

ALBANY, Ga. — On a recent Wednesday, a little over a week after the federal Department of Labor said it was going to shut it down, the Turner Job Corps Center in Albany, Ga., hosted what amounted to an emergency job fair. 

Employers were spread around the basketball court inside the center’s gymnasium where the red, white and blue color scheme that began with the American flags at the front security gate carried through to the gym walls. 

Turner Center enrollees, some in hard hats and work boots, others in work shirts striped for high visibility — or just dressed like the college-aged young people they were — talked up employers and filled out applications. 

 Among them was Estella McCrystal, 22. McCrystal said two years ago she was living in a homeless shelter in Albany when she first heard about the Turner Job Corps Center across town. 

 “At first I was a little apprehensive about it, but I looked at it and I said, ‘Okay, this seems like an amazing concept of a place,’” McCrystal said in a phone conversation after the job fair.   

 The concept at Turner and all other Job Corps Centers is this: Young people between 18 and 24 can get vocational and technical training in a number of different careers, including, but not limited to, construction, welding, electrical work or how to work in correctional facilities. The training is all free to the student. 

“And so that blew me away,” McCrystal said. 

Plus, there's housing, three meals a day and a pay stipend for students, too, just for going to school. 

So McCrystal applied. She said when she finally got the call, it was only about 20 minutes later that the van came to take from the shelter to the Turner Center.

Then she went to work, earning certificates in culinary arts and office administration. 

“My main focus right now is to try to get a job as quickly as possible,” she said. 

On average, just under half the students who graduate from Turner get and keep a job. For McCrystal, the search has been tough.  She thought she had about six months to find work.

That was before May 29, when the federal Department of Labor released a letter announcing the plan to wind down all 100-plus job centers across the country by June 30. 

And so now McCrystal is afraid.

“If I don't focus on getting out of here properly, I'm going to end up in a shelter again,” she said. 

Donna Hay, executive director of the National Job Corps Association, said McCrystal is far from alone. 

“About 20% of students on Job Corps campuses across the country came directly from homeless shelters or from the foster care system before enrolling,” Hay said. 

That's works out to about 20,000 people across the country. At the Albany center, a little over 100 students may be left to their own devices. Already some have been boarding buses back, if not to a home, the cities they came from before enrolling, such as Atlanta and even cities out of state. Another job center operates in Brunswick, on the Georgia coast, too. 

Hay’s group, which represents the private companies which run most of the country’s Job Corps Centers, sued the Department of Labor in federal court in New York and won a temporary restraining order against their plan. She asked why stop Job Corps now when President Trump is talking about growing American jobs? 

“Job Corps is the nation's largest residential trade school,” Hay said.

The program has its roots in President Lyndon Johnsons “War on Poverty” in the 1960s. Initially, it was modeled on the Civil Conservation Corps, a Great Depression-era program which, among other things, built many of the parks people still enjoy around the country today. 

That conservation tack was never fully shed. There are still a few centers which work hand-in-glove to train workers with the U.S. Forest Service. But for most of the existence of the Job Corps, it's been about training skilled laborers. 

“And when we see companies like Huntington Ingalls and Johnson & Johnson and FedEx and CVS line up to hire Job Corps trained workers, it's because it shows that the demand is there for these skill sets,” Hay said. 

In their letter stating their intent to end the program, the Department of Labor points to a $140 million funding deficit in fiscal year 2024 and an even bigger one shaping up for FY 25.

Hay said that's because funding has remained flat while the cost of running the program has risen with inflation. She says while the deficit is a problem, it shouldn't enough to scrap the whole program. 

 “If your house has a leaky roof, you fix the roof. You don't demolish the entire house,” she said.  

The restraining order has put time back on the clock. Rather than use it to argue in court, Hay would like to talk about reforms like allowing big companies to give money directly to Job Corps. 

“We have varying entities, including employers, who are ready and willing to donate funds to campuses and to the program nationwide, but are prohibited from doing so,” she said.  

That prohibition is spelled out in the law undergirding the program. It would have to change the next time the law comes up for reauthorization by Congress.  

Students weren’t the only people filling out applications at the job fair. Current employees in business casual attire were shaking hands and making new contacts, as well. 

Velvet Poole worries about them, too. She serves on the Dougherty County School Board which collaborates with the Turner Center. She just left her job at the center in May.  She said she earned her commercial drivers’ license right alongside her students. 

“We love on them and then we also give them an opportunity to get some knowledge,” Poole said.  

But she said her former colleagues aren’t quite getting the attention they deserve as the center faces closure. There about 200 people still working at Turner. That makes it an important regional employer in Southwest Georgia.  

“There are people that have been out there for 20, 30 years, and this is all they've done,” Poole said “So where would they go?” 

The government of the city of Albany, including its commission and mayor, has been vocal in its support of the Turner Job Corps Center, including by organizing a public rally.  

Meanwhile, 199 members of Congress, most but not all of whom were Democrats, co-signed a letter sent to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer in support for the Job Corps program. 

Donna Hay and the National Job Corps Association will continue to fight for the program in federal court.