Pittsburgh Job Corps closure will displace hundreds of students, staff

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Job Corps is closing, displacing hundreds of students and staff.

The move comes after the Department of Labor said that the program was “no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve.”

More than 400 students are currently enrolled at the Highland Park campus.

“It’s really sad to see that these students are not going to have anywhere to go, because we really saved a lot of unhoused individuals,” former Job Corps educator Carrie Nolan-Robson said.

Nolan-Robson taught math classes at Job Corps for a number of years. Now the executive director at Northside North Shore Chamber of Commerce, she’s witnessed the impact the program had on not just the students, but the Pittsburgh workforce.

“I have had several students who were in my math class who went and worked on the shell cracker plant and helped to build that they are going into union jobs," she said.

The 60-year-old free education and training program will come to an end on June 30, according to the federal government. It’s leaving local students scrambling.

“Pittsburgh Job Corps gave me a second chance at college, and I got two trades out of it: I am a certified medical assistant, and I did culinary,” Lilith Stroup said.

Stroup, a single mom from Leechburg, was forced to drop out of Pitt-Greensburg due to finances. Now enrolled in the job corps college program, gave her a second chance at becoming a nurse.

Pittsburgh is one of 99 centers across the country that provide low-income students ages 16 to 24 with free housing, medical care, education, training and certification assistance.

Of the 438 students enrolled at Pittsburgh Job Corps, 188 live at the center and nearly 50 face immediate homelessness.

If the center were to close, an estimated 180 staff members would also lose their jobs.

Stroup disagrees with the Department of Labor’s claim that the program isn’t helping students anymore.

“The system failed us. We wanted to go and be better and then here is another obstacle that is setting us back,” she said.

According to the federal government, there is only a 39% graduation rate from Job Corps and it costs more than $80,000 per student. However, data from the National Job Corps Association refutes those numbers and shows that in Pittsburgh, there is a 50% graduation rate and the cost per student is only $36,000.

It’s an expense that Nolan-Robson says is worth every penny.

“I don’t think we are, we are looking very short term here, we are not looking at the larger impact it has, it’s not just about the program, it’s about what’s being put into the community,” she said.

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