Senator Collins Urges Secretary of Labor to Reverse Halt on Job Corps Enrollment in Maine
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Washington, D.C. – At a hearing to review the Fiscal Year 2026 budget request for the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), U.S. Senator Susan Collins, Chair of the Appropriations Committee, urged DOL Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer to reverse the Department’s halt of new enrollment at Maine’s two Job Corps centers—Loring Job Corps Center (LJCC) and Penobscot Job Corps Center (Penobscot)—and the proposed elimination of the Job Corps program altogether.
During the hearing, Senator Collins spoke about Adais Viruet-Torres, a graduate of LJCC and Husson University who overcame homelessness and now works as a nurse practitioner.
In April, Senator Collins sent a letter to Secretary Chavez-DeRemer urging the DOL to lift the halt on enrollment at LCJJ and Penobscot.
Q&A with Secretary Chavez-Remer:
Senator Collins:
Madam Secretary, as you are well aware, last month, the Department of Labor announced that enrollment at Maine's two Job Corps centers was abruptly halted.
The Loring and the Penobscot Job Corps Centers serve nearly 500 students in Maine each year and have become important pillars of support for some of our most vulnerable teenagers. Loring also has 129 staff members and is one of the largest employers in rural northern Maine.
Then, the Administration submitted a budget request that proposes to eliminate Job Corps altogether. This will deprive thousands – tens of thousands – of Job Corps students across the country of the opportunity to gain valuable skills and credentials to pursue higher education, or enter the workforce, or join the military.
It's clear that Job Corps, while not perfect, works. And I want to tell you the personal story of a young woman – and I put up her pictures so that you can see her.
I first met Adais Viruet-Torres in 2008 when she was a Job Corps student in northern Maine at the Loring Center. She was originally from Connecticut. She was experiencing homelessness. She was in a very difficult, dangerous situation, and she recognized that she needed to change her life. She learned about Job Corps largely by chance, and I asked her, how did you choose the Job Corps Center in northern Maine? She said, I needed to get as far away, in the Northeast, from the terrible environment in which I was living that I possibly could.
Well, the story has a very happy ending. In 2019, I was the commencement speaker at Husson University in Bangor, and who comes up to me but Adais. She has earned, with honors, her nursing degree. She went on to get her nurse practitioner degree. She totally turned around her life. And that is the second picture that I'm showing you, and you'll notice that she is holding in her hands the picture that we took when the Job Corps students came in 2008 to see me here in Washington.
Job Corps literally saved her life, and she has been in the medical field ever since. It was Job Corps that made this possible.
So, I, for the life of me, do not understand why the Administration wants to eliminate this valuable program. And I know we've had a discussion on the cost. It is so much more expensive if someone, because of the influence and lack of support, ends up addicted, or sex trafficked, or in jail, than it is to have them go to a Job Corps Center and receive the guidance and skills that they need to turn around their lives.
And I wanted to make this real to you by showing you the two pictures and the change in this young woman's life.
So, in making these decisions, did you consider the potential impact that halting enrollment at the two centers of Maine, which you did only in the State of Maine, and also proposing the elimination of the program on people like Adais, whose life was changed, and I would argue, saved by Job Corps?
Secretary Chavez-DeRemer:
Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate this. First and foremost, I want to say at the front end, we agree that this population is somebody we all care about. That is not the essence of what we're here to talk about, but we do have to discuss the sustainability of Job Corps…
… But we do have to look at it from a perspective, is it sustainable over time? And so, we've released, the Department of Labor, a public transparency report that has never been done before and never exposed the costs for each and every state. And I know that I've shared with many of you the respective costs. I will continue to look at this, but the transparency report shines a light of the serious flaws of this program.
So, here's what I would say; can we imagine together what it's like to continue to focus on this population throughout the country and do it better, more responsibly, and protect the American taxpayer, because on the outcome, we want those tax dollars to be spent in a responsible way and still have the measured outcome that serves this young woman and many others. That's what I'm focused on doing, and I am committed to each and every one of you to work through that process and what that looks like.
No final decision has been made, but we are reviewing every Job Corps facility, and I understand the President's budget is signaling that this is not something that is sustainable over time. It's a $1.7 billion program with a 38% graduation rate, when oftentimes the cost of almost $50,000 per student, and to get out about $156,000. We are in the hole now. I would have to come to the Appropriations Committee and ask for more money to just get us back to baseline, to have a graduation rate of 32%.
… And so, if you'll allow me to continue that conversation with you along the way, I promise you we won't forget this population. We want them trained, up-skilled, re-skilled, and have a job that changes their lives for the future of this country as well.
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