Grafton Job Corps searching for shelter for 30 homeless students as Trump Administration prepares to vacate closing campus on Monday
Photo | Eric Casey
The Grafton Job Corps Center
Local Job Corps officials and supporters are scrambling to find housing for some students, as the U.S. Department of Labor confirmed it is implementing what the agency is calling a phased pause at 99 contract-operated Job Corps campuses in the country, including centers in Devens and Grafton.
The pause will result in the centers closing on June 30, according to a Thursday press release from Department of Labor. The agency’s notice regarding the pause did not include details on how or when it could end, and cited President Donald Trump Administration's fiscal 2026 discretionary budget request, which called for the Job Corps program to be eliminated.
WBJ first reported on the pending closures on Wednesday, citing local Job Corps Center officials who had been notified in advance of the pending announcement.
Just under 25,000 students are enrolled in Job Corps across the country, including 478 residential students and 59 non-residential participants at the centers in Grafton and Devens.
Jeannie Hebert, president and CEO of the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce, who has been involved with the Grafton site through her work with the Blackstone Valley Hub Advanced Manufacturing program, said Job Corps employees and supporters are scrambling to find housing for 30 students who do not have available options and have been told they need to vacate the campus by Monday.
“These are people's lives they're playing with, and it's horrible,” Hebert said of the Trump Administration’s decision to unilaterally shutter all contract-run Job Centers across the country, regardless of the center’s performance metrics.
The Trump Administration cited what it said is high costs, low graduation rates, and disciplinary problems at centers as the reason behind its calls for the program to be eliminated.
U.S. Department of Labor said it plans to offer impacted students referrals to job training programs or job opportunities, and will cover transportation costs to send students back to their home of record, according to a question-and-answer document posted with the press release.
The 24 Job Corps Centers operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will not be impacted by this pause.
Hebert said jobs have been lined up for the impacted students who are homeless, but are looking for available shelter space. She and other supporters of Job Corps have started a grassroots campaign to alert elected officials about the impact of the move and encourage the Trump Administration to reverse the decision.
Supporters of Job Corps, including National Association of Home Builders and the National Job Corps Association have said the program is worth the costs, saying it is critical to address the nation’s skilled labor shortage and is an effective high school dropout recovery program.
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.
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The author of the 2 articles about Job Corps should have included the real details of the cost of the Job Corps program.
If people want the facts instead of the fluff try reading the following details from the Department of Labor site:
The Job Corps program is projected to be $213 million deficit for 2025 and had a $140 million deficit for 2024. Only 38.6 graduation rate. $80 thousand cost per student per year with less than $17 thousand earnings post separation. Not to mention the 14,900+ incidents that occurred during the 2023 program year.
Perhaps the author of this article could quote the facts of the program costs and returns from the Department of Labor site versus the data they referenced to make this look like a Trump attack on the young er generation. This is a dollars and cents issue. No public company would ever think to continue this program with it's high costs and low success rate.
The comments data is from DOL site -
https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20250529
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