Trump Administration Shutting Down Vocational School

Milwaukee Jobs Corps Center, 6665 N. 60th St. Photo taken June 3, 2025 by Graham Kilmer.

President Donald Trump‘s administration is shutting down a vocational training school in Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee Jobs Corps Center, 6665 N. 60th St., currently provides training and education for more than 200 students. It is one of dozens of centers across the U.S. being shut down by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The centers provide a residential vocational school for students, with programs for masonry, HVAC, nurse assistants and welding among others. Jobs Corps Centers are in all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Students between the ages of 16 and 24 gain industry-recognized credentials, high school diplomas or equivalents and soft skills to help them enter the workforce.

The labor department recently announced a “pause” on operations beginning June 30 at centers across the country in line with Trump’s recent budget proposal for fiscal year 2026. While it’s described as a pause, the department offered no indication it would resume, only that it would “evaluate the program’s possibilities.” In the meantime, students will have to transition to other “education and employment opportunities.”

The Jobs Corps Center has traditionally served students who found traditional education settings challenging. Many come from poverty, some are even homeless, said Jamie De Jesus Sr., COO of the Innovative Education Solutions Institute, which provides CNC machining internships to Milwaukee Jobs Corps students.

“Imagine you have no place to go in the world, and then you finally find a place that accepts you, and then you get told you gotta leave and go back to the streets,” said De Jesus.

The labor department’s announcement has drawn bipartisan condemnation. But the agency defended its decision to shutter the program by pointing to a report released in April showing an average graduation rate of approximately 38.6%; an annual cost per student of $80,284.65; low wages for former students and thousands of incidents involving drugs.

“Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,” Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement. “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.”

The report, which was compiled using data from 2023, has been criticized by a Jobs Corp proponent.

Donna Hay, president and CEO of the National Jobs Corps Association (NJCA), called it a “deeply flawed report,” The NJCA said funding for the program from Congress has remained relatively flat, despite rising costs and that COVID-19 pandemic-era policies were still affecting enrollment and retention during the study, which lowered the numbers. It said that the Job Corps graduation rate is historically closer to 60%, the cost per student is less than $50,000 and the average graduate placed into a position earns more than twice the minimum wage. 

Despite its criticism of the report, the association had previously said it was willing to work with the Trump administration to reform and improve the Jobs Corps program.

Milwaukee was selected for a Job Corps site after advocacy by then-mayor Tom Barrett in 2003. The 25-acre campus includes two residence halls and space for 300 students. It has awarded thousands of high school diplomas and career and technical education credentials since it opened in 2011.

Wisconsin’s U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said the Trump Administration is going in the “wrong direction” with its Jobs Corps decision.

“Job training programs like Job Corps are a proven way to connect more Wisconsinites with careers that in turn fuel our economy,” Baldwin said in a statement. “Congress appropriated funding for Job Corps, and the Trump Administration can’t just decide to not spend it because they want to make room for tax cuts for billionaires.”

Losing the program could change the trajectory of many young people’s lives, said De Jesus, who at 47, spent most of his adult life caught in the justice system, in and out of prison. He now thinks a program like Jobs Corps could have set him on a different path.

“It’s about gaining disciplines to live your life in a different fashion, and being able to beat the streets,” he said.

De Jesus and others are now scrambling to find alternative education opportunities for students, trying to secure housing for them or enroll them in food assistance programs before they leave campus.

“The government is supposed to be there to help save people,” De Jesus said, “and they’re throwing them to the wolves right now.”

Existing members must be signed in to see the interactive map. Sign in.