Trump Pauses Job Corps, Leaving San José Trade Students in Turmoil

Updated 12:42 p.m. Friday

Last Thursday, the director of San José’s Job Corps center, Davina Wong, gathered students at the federally funded trade school for an emergency town hall.

The site, Wong said, was at serious risk of being shut down by the Trump administration, leaving about 350 students who study and live there without anywhere to go, according to Brandon Marroquin, who studies mechatronics there. An additional 110 students commute to the center’s technical training programs.

The announcement came after months of uncertainty following DOGE-led federal workforce and program cuts. A week later, the Department of Labor announced in a blanket release on May 29 that it would pause operations at 99 out of 131 Job Corps centers, including San José’s, on June 30.

“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,” DOL Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement.

Marroquin said he was told by staffers at the San José center that they want all students who board at the center to leave by June 6, and for any student who has a home to which they can return to leave “today or in a few days.”

“A lot of people on campus don’t have anywhere to go, or they escaped from abusive homes. I am in that category,” Marroquin, 23, told KQED. “If they shut down Job Corps, a good chunk of these students are going to be homeless, are going to go back to their abusive homes. This is going to affect a lot of communities.”

He enrolled in a mechatronics program at Silicon Valley Career Technical Education through San José’s Job Corps, which is operated by Career Systems Development Corporation, last summer. Marroquin grew up in Fresno County, where he had been attending community college, but left to escape an abusive home environment.

He told KQED that Job Corps was his opportunity to turn over a “new leaf.”

“It’s my second chance, my second lease on life,” he said.

Job Corps became the central program of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” in 1964, offering education and housing to youth who were unemployed through the Department of Labor.

Centers offer free enrollment, furnished dormitories, three meals a day and basic medical care for low-income 16- to 24-year-olds who take part in one of its more than 10 technical training programs.

It also provides access to recreational activities, books and supplies and bimonthly living allowances, according to its website.

Marroquin plans to complete his basic trade training in an engineering specialty next week. After that, he had hoped to pursue an advanced training program through Job Corps, which provides housing and access to college-level courses in specific fields, including in his engineering field at its New Hampshire site in Manchester.

Now, he’s worried he might not even have a place to stay come June.

“It’s really unfortunate how I can’t even do my education correctly. I can’t even work [up] the career ladder,” Marroquin said. “I can’t even focus on my future because I’m worried about if I’m not going to have a place to even live or to eat.”

San José’s Job Corps personnel were not available for comment in time for this story’s publication.

The Job Corps operated with a $140 million deficit in 2024, and that shortfall is expected to balloon to $213 million in 2025, according to the department. It is the most expensive of the Department of Labor’s programs, costing about $1.7 billion in 2024.

A 2008 study from Mathematica showed that the program had beneficial impacts on disadvantaged youth and reduced their involvement in criminal activity or need for public assistance programs. But it also showed a lack of long-term earnings impacts for participants.

Recent data from the DOL found that participants earn $16,695 per year on average when they leave Job Corps programs.

It also shows that in 2023, serious incident reports were written for more than 1,700 acts of violence, about 2,700 instances of drug use and more than 1,160 breaches of security across Job Corps’ roughly 100 sites.

“The department’s decision aligns with President [Trump]’s FY 2026 budget proposal and reflects the Administration’s commitment to ensure federal workforce investments deliver meaningful results for both students and taxpayers,” the DOL statement said.

Despite apparent issues, Marroquin said his experience over the past 10 months has been positive — barring some issues with declining services, staff and resources since the Trump administration took office in January, during which he enacted a temporary funding freeze and offered a voluntary buy-out to federal employees.

“I had a safe place of shelter,” he told KQED. “I’ve learned so much here, not only for my trade but also social skills and going to counselors, going to staff members … Basically, the structure and order has taught me a lot.”

He said he’s worried about other students who began their studies early in 2025, before a pause on background checks halted new enrollments around March.

“Now, they’re in the middle of doing their trade,” he said. “I feel bad for them now because we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

The DOL said it plans to work with state and workforce partners “to assist current students in advancing their training and connecting them with education and employment opportunities.”

But Marroquin isn’t counting on the federal government’s help.

“If Job Corps shuts down, I will be homeless,” he said.

Marroquin added that he’s been asking around campus for places to stay, but is also considering taking out loans to afford to go back to a community college, and holding out some hope that he’ll get to enroll in Job Corps’ advanced program.

“I’m at this weird place where not only am I going forward with New Hampshire — if it’s going to go on or not — and I’m also applying for homeless shelters,” he told KQED.