Job Corps was established as a national employment and training program in 1964 to mitigate employment barriers faced by severely disadvantaged youths. Job Corps enrolls youths aged 16 to 24 who are economically disadvantaged, in need of additional education or training, and living in disorienting conditions such as a disruptive homelife. Students may enroll in training programs throughout the year and progress at their own pace. Job Corps provides participants with a wide range of services, including basic education, vocational skills training, social skill instruction, counseling, health care, room and board, and recreation. The program offers vocational skills training in areas such as business occupations, automotive repair, construction trades, and health occupations. Participation in Job Corps can lead to placement in a job or enrollment in further training or education. It can also lead to educational achievements such as attaining a high school diploma and skills in reading or mathematics. Job Corps is unique in that, for the most part, it is residential. About 90 percent of the youths enrolled each year live at Job Corps centers and are provided services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The premise for boarding participants is that most come from a disruptive environment and, therefore, can benefit from receiving education and training in a different setting in which a variety of support services are available around the clock. Job Corps operates in a very structured and disciplined environment. For example, established daily routines must be followed, as must specific rules and regulations governing such areas as acceptable dress and behavior. Furthermore, Job Corps participants must have permission to leave the Job Corps center grounds, and participants “earn” home leave, which must be approved before being taken and can be denied for a number of reasons such as failure to follow a center’s rules of conduct. Job Corps typically employs residential staff to oversee dormitory living and security staff for the safety and well-being of its participants. The program recently implemented a “zero tolerance” policy for violence and drugs. This policy includes a “one-strike-and-you’re-out” provision for the most serious violent or criminal offenses as well as for drug violations. Job Corps currently operates 109 centers throughout mainland United States, Alaska and Hawaii, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Most states have at least one center, and several states have four or more centers. Job Corps’ nine regional directors are responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Job Corps program at the centers within their geographic boundaries. Private corporations and nonprofit organizations, selected through competitive procurement, operate the majority of the centers. However, the departments of Agriculture and Interior directly operate 28 centers, called civilian conservation centers, under interagency agreements. The regional directors are also responsible for overseeing the recruitment of youths for program participation and the placement of participants after they leave Job Corps. Recruitment, referred to as outreach and admissions by program managers, and placement services are provided by private contractors, the centers, or state employment service agencies under contract with the regional offices. During program year 1995, Job Corps spent about $60 million on outreach and admissions as well as placement contracts. This included amounts paid contractors solely for outreach and admissions and placement services. In addition, a portion of the funding for some Job Corps center operation contracts was specifically designated for outreach and admissions and placement services. Job Corps contractors are expected to meet certain levels of achievement in order to continue to participate in the program and receive program funding. A performance standard has been established for outreach and admissions contractors with respect to “quotas” of male and female youths to be enrolled (as specified in the contract), and a second standard relates to the proportion of participants who are to remain in the program for more than 30 days (90 percent). A third standard relates to the percentage of participants who are eventually placed following termination from the program (70 percent). Similarly, placement contractors are required to meet established standards related to the percentage of participants placed in jobs, the military, schools, or other training programs (70 percent). Additional standards are applied to participants who are placed in jobs. These standards relate to the percentage obtaining full-time jobs (70 percent) and jobs directly related to the vocational training received (42 percent). A fourth placement standard relates to the average wage received at placement. Individuals enroll in Job Corps by submitting applications through outreach and admissions contractors. The length of time students stay in Job Corps can vary substantially—from 1 day to 2 years. In program year 1995, about 15 percent of the enrollees left Job Corps within 30 days of entering the program and more than one-fourth left within 60 days. On the average, however, students spend about 7 months in the program. Students leave Job Corps for a variety of reasons, including successful completion of the program objectives, voluntary resignation, disciplinary termination, and being absent without leave (AWOL) for 10 consecutive training days. With a few exceptions, participants terminating from Job Corps are assigned to a placement contractor for assistance in finding a job or enrolling in other education or training programs. Placement contractors are to give priority to finding full-time, training-related jobs for participants. We found that Job Corps’ policy guidance on two of its eligibility criteria was ambiguous and incomplete. As a result, the program’s eligibility process was not following all the requirements of the law or program regulations. The law specifies program eligibility requirements, including age, economic status, educational needs, medical condition, and behavioral condition—all defined in the legislation, implementing regulations, or Labor policy guidance. Another legislative requirement—living in an environment characterized by disorienting conditions—has not been clearly defined in the statute, regulations, or Labor’s guidance. Further, Labor has not provided adequate guidance regarding the requirement that participants have the capability and aspirations to complete and secure the full benefits of Job Corps. Contractors are required to follow Labor’s Policy and Requirements Handbook, which sets out 11 eligibility criteria for the program that all participants must satisfy: age, economically disadvantaged, requires additional education or training, environment, health history, behavioral adjustment history, capability and aspirations to participate, legal U.S. resident, child care, parental consent, and Selective Service registration (see app. II). The first seven are specified in the law. The policy handbook generally provides guidance on what is needed to meet most of these criteria. For example, to be eligible under the education or training criterion, an applicant must be a dropout or in need of additional education, training, or related support services in order to hold meaningful employment, participate in regular school work, qualify for other training, or satisfy armed forces requirements. However, guidance on two of the criteria (environment and capability and aspirations) is vague. One of Job Corps’ eligibility criteria specified in the law for participation in the program relates to environment: A participant must come from “an environment so characterized by cultural deprivation, a disruptive homelife, or other disorienting conditions as to substantially impair prospects for successful participation in other programs providing needed training, education, or assistance.” Program regulations go on to explain that the disorienting condition must be one that would impair the applicant’s chance of success in a nonresidential program rather than a residential Job Corps program. Job Corps legislation, Labor’s program regulations, and Job Corps’ policy handbook list environmental factors to be considered when assessing eligibility, but these sources of program guidance are not entirely consistent nor do they contain adequate definitions (see table 1). With the exception of the regulatory definition of disruptive homelife, program guidance does not define the factors that make up the environmental criterion. In the absence of specific definitions of the environmental criterion, admissions counselors applied their own interpretations. As shown in table 1, Labor includes “limited job opportunities” in its policy handbook as a disorienting condition that fulfills the environmental eligibility requirement. However, none of the sources of program guidance specifically defines this factor or gives any direction to assessment counselors to help them interpret it, nor do they explain how limited job opportunities affect the chance of success in a residential program compared to a nonresidential one. In prior Job Corps regulations, Labor included among “disruptive conditions” that could impair an applicant’s prospect to participate fully in nonresidential training “a neighborhood or community characterized by high crime rates, high unemployment rates, high school dropout rates, and similar handicaps.” Unlike the present regulations, the prior version made clear that applicants might be subject to more than one disruptive factor and that several factors in combination might satisfy this impairment criterion. Labor’s present guidance does not explain how “limited job opportunities” by themselves can satisfy this criterion. Nonetheless, limited job opportunities was the factor cited as fulfilling the environmental eligibility requirement for 92 percent of the 68,000 Job Corps enrollees in program year 1995. Because admissions counselors generally indicate only one environmental factor on the Job Corps application form, we have no way of knowing how many of these participants would have met the environmental criterion had limited job opportunities not been used to fulfill the requirement. Further, the admissions counselors we interviewed had varying interpretations of limited job opportunity. Some thought that it referred to the applicants’ lack of job skills or lack of education, whereas others thought that it referred to the economic condition of the geographic areas in which applicants resided or their being too young or lacking transportation. Cultural deprivation, another eligibility factor that could fulfill the environmental criterion, was not clearly defined—in fact, it is not even listed in Labor’s policy handbook—and was also interpreted differently by various admissions counselors. One contractor referred to persons who had never gone to a museum or the beach; another thought it applied to a situation such as raising a minority child in a nonminority family; a third referred to living in a housing project. Most admissions counselors we interviewed admitted that they had no idea what this term meant.