A $1.7 Billion Program That Doesn’t Work
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Less than half of students enrolled in the most expensive job training program within the Labor Department complete their training and find a job, reports the Washington Post.
Part of President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” was the Job Corps, a job training program intended to teach trade skills to troubled youth. The program is still in place today, and students can take cooking classes, study to be a nurse or learn the plumbing trade from government instructors. But a single year of training and job placement costs taxpayers a whopping $45,000.
The Treasure Lake Job Corps center in Oklahoma participates in the program, but it is not at all clear that the program is worth the cost. Recent statistics show that only 49 percent of Treasure Lake students completed their training, and of that 49 percent, only 55 percent found jobs in the fields for which they were trained.
The program is the Labor Department’s most expensive, costing $1.7 billion in 2014 with spots for 37,000 young Americans to participate in the training program.
Is the program worth it?
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