Citation
Crawford, C. (1993). Job Corps costs and outcomes. Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office.
Highlights
- This Government Accountability Office brief studied the costs and outcomes of the Job Corps program during program year 1991 (covering calendar year July 1991 through June 1992). Job Corps offers intensive academic classroom instruction and vocational skills training, along with support services, to economically disadvantaged youth.
- The authors used data from the Department of Labor's Office of Job Corps to explore the differences in the costs of Job Corps centers run by contractors and those run by federal agencies. They also studied the employment outcomes of Job Corps participants who received training from sole-source contractors—those awarded contracts through a non-competitive process.
- The authors found that the cost per participant was higher in Job Corps centers run by federal departments than in centers run by contractors. This difference was driven by variation in the types of training the centers offered.
- Participants in Job Corps centers operated by sole-source contractors, especially those offering training under national training contracts, tended to have higher rates of job placement than participants in other types of Job Corps centers.
Intervention Examined
Job Corps
Reviewed by CLEAR
March 2014