Collbran Job Corps continues operations as feds shut down other centers
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GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Last week, the Department of Labor announced its plans to shut down 99 contractor-operated Job Corps centers across the country, which would eliminate the country’s largest residential job training program for low-income youth ages 16 to 24.
The affected centers filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in response.
On the Grand Mesa in western Colorado, Collbran Job Corps, founded 60 years ago, is still in operation despite the nationwide pause. Students are learning and living on campus. As a Forest Service Civilian Conservation Center, the Collbran campus is one of 24 run by the Department of Agriculture as opposed to outside contractors. These centers are not affected by the pause.
“Right now, we're just supposed to hold the line,” said Shilo Dial, a nurse at the Collbran Job Corps campus.
“We just try to assure the kids. Theoretically, every day, you don't know what tomorrow looks like. We’re just trying to encourage them, and they know that we will help them as best we can no matter what happens.”
Job Corps began in 1964 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” programs. It was designed for low-income teenagers and young adults, to teach them trade skills while working on public infrastructure. Tuition, housing, meals and healthcare are free for Job Corps students.
Nearly 200 members of the House of Representatives, from both parties, sent a letter to the Department of Labor last week showing their support for Job Corps.
“No other program takes homeless youth and turns them into the welders, electricians, shipbuilders, carpenters, nurses, mechanics, and vocational workers of the future,” the letter reads.
Gove Aker was director of the Collbran center for 23 years. He said it’s one of the best in the country, and that much will be lost if Job Corps is shut down nationwide.
“We're losing a program that is basically eligible for all people, [people with] learning disabilities, physical disabilities, you name it. It takes them in and tries to make them the best they can be. And it gives a lot of people a hand up, not a handout,” said Aker, who’s retired and lives in Grand Junction.
Job Corps serves about 25,000 people at centers run by contractors across the country, according to Reuters.
The Collbran campus is the only Job Corps center in Colorado. It served 92 students in 2024, according to a report from the USDA.
Aker says the mission of Job Corps was to give young people job skills and leadership experience, and make them equal to anybody else in the country.
“Collbran was one of the greatest centers, and it was often called the ‘West Point of Job Corps’ at one point in time,” said Aker.
Aker has been retired for seven years, but he still hears from former students who are proud of their time at Job Corps and feel like the program set them up for success.
“You get people that never thought they could be in student government or be in any kind of leadership capacity. And all of a sudden this opens up a whole new world for them that they didn't have a chance to ever experience,” said Aker.
In an emailed response to questions from Rocky Mountain PBS, a USDA spokesperson said “the Department of Labor has notified USDA of their intention to terminate Job Corps contracts and suspend operations for the Job Corps program.”
The statement went on to say that USDA is reviewing the program and will determine the status of the 24 Forest Service centers soon, and offered no further clarification about the future of Collbran Job Corps in response to RMPBS questions.
Dial has worked on the Collbran campus for almost two years. As a nurse, she said she isn’t too worried about finding another job if the campus closes in the future. But she’s scared for the students who depend on housing from the program.
“If our center stays open, obviously that's the best scenario,” Dial said. “I'm really worried for where these kids are going to go. A lot of these kids came from nowhere. Where are we supposed to send them? Some of them have great families to go home to, but a lot of them don't. Those are the ones I worry about.”
In order to be eligible to participate in Job Corps, students must qualify as low income — either living below the poverty level, experiencing homelessness or living in foster care — and face barriers to completing their education or finding a job.
According to the USDA website about the Civilian Conservation Centers, students at Collbran Job Corps can receive training in welding, carpentry, computer networking and wildland firefighting, among other disciplines.
Some students at the Collbran center planned to transfer to contractor-operated centers to continue their education in trades not offered on campus, but that is no longer an option for them.
Employees at the Collbran location had a scare in 2019 during Trump’s first term. Federal officials intended to close some Forest Service-operated centers and transition Collbran Job Corps and 15 others to a private operator, according to the Daily Sentinel. For a month, staffers at the Collbran center, mostly Forest Service employees, were in limbo.
Part of the effort to save Job Corps programs in 2019 came from a group of bipartisan legislators in Congress. Representative Scott Tipton (R) and Senators Michael Bennet (D) and Cory Gardner (R) from Colorado signed a letter to the USDA and DOL, asking them to reconsider shutting down Jobs Corps programs.
In a news release last week announcing “a phased pause in operations” at Job Corps centers, the Department of Labor cited a low graduation rate — 38.6 percent — as one of the reasons the program isn’t achieving meaningful results.
“That’s still 38 percent of kids that would have never even graduated at all ever. Yeah, it's not a huge number, but it's a lot bigger than it would be if they weren't here,” Dial said. “It’s kids that fell in the cracks and got missed, and we catch them.”
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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