Policy Chapters and Sections

General Youth Eligibility Requirements

Chapter: 5 Section: 4
Effective Date: 7/1/2015
Expiration Date: Continuing
Published Date: 4/10/2024 9:49:43 AM
Status: Current
Version: 5

Tags: Eligibility

  1. To be eligible to participate in activities carried out under this chapter during any Program Year, an individual shall, at the time of eligibility determination is made, be an Out-of-School Youth (OSY) or an In-School Youth (ISY).
  2. To determine school status, "Attending school" means when an individual is enrolled in and/or attending a secondary school or credit-bearing classes in post-secondary school.
    1. If the youth participant is enrolled in any credit-bearing postsecondary education classes, including credit-bearing community college classes and credit-bearing continuing education classes, then they are considered attending postsecondary education and, therefore, an ISY.
    2. If the youth is only enrolled in non-credit-bearing postsecondary classes, they would not be considered attending postsecondary school and, therefore, an OSY.
    3. For purposes of WIOA, providers of adult education under Title II of WIOA, YouthBuild programs, the Job Corps program, high school equivalency programs, and dropout re-engagement programs are not considered to be schools for the purposes of determining school status.
      1. The only exception is if the high school equivalency (HSE) programs, including those considered to be dropout re-engagement programs, is funded by the public K–12 school system.
  3. For WIOA youth program eligibility, an individual who is no longer enrolled in secondary school and has not received a secondary school diploma or its recognized equivalent is considered a school dropout.
  4. The compulsory education law in Illinois requires children between the ages of six (6) and seventeen (17) must attend full-time school until they graduate. But there are exceptions, and some students may drop out early.
  5. The WIOA youth program has the following funding limitations for a program year:
    1. Not less than seventy-five (75) percent of WIOA youth formula funds available shall be used to provide youth workforce activities for OSY;
    2. Up to five (5) percent of ISY and OSY may be individuals who would be eligible for the WIOA youth program, except that the individual is not low-income;
    3. Not more than five (5) percent of ISY may be eligible based upon the individual barrier being that the individual requires additional assistance to complete an educational program or to secure or hold employment; and
    4. A minimum of twenty (20) percent of the total local area youth formula funds shall be spent on work experience.
  6. Local Workforce Innovation Boards (LWIBs) must establish local policy on the definition and use of individual requires additional assistance to “requiring additional assistance to enter or complete an educational program, or to secure and hold employment” criterion for out-of-school youth specified in WIOA section 129(a)(1)(B)(iii)(VIII) and for “requiring additional assistance to complete an education program, or to secure and hold employment” criterion for in-school youth.
    1. Training and Employment Notice 22-19, Attachment 1 provides examples of definitions of “requires additional assistance” that local boards can consider to further define the “requires additional assistance” eligibility criteria.
  7. Low-income requirements only apply to the following categories of youth:
    1. OSY who is a recipient of a secondary school diploma or its recognized equivalent who is either basic skills deficient or an English language learner; and
    2. OSY who requires additional assistance to enter or complete an educational program or to secure or hold employment; and
    3. All ISY.
  8. WIOA allows an exception to the low-income requirements for the youth populations listed above.  Five (5) percent of WIOA youth be determined eligible without meeting the low-income requirement only if they meet all other eligibility criteria for WIOA youth.
    1. A program must calculate the five percent based on the percent of newly enrolled youth in the local area’s WIOA youth program in a given program year, regardless of school status, who would ordinarily be required to meet the low-income criteria.
    2. For example, OSY who have any of the other seven (7) barriers (e.g., dropout, offender, homeless, etc.) do not need to be low income and are not included in the denominator for the 5% exception calculation.
  9. For this subsection, the term ‘‘low-income’’, used with respect to an individual, also includes a youth living in a High-Poverty Area.
  10. To ensure the program serves a diverse mix of youth and is accessible to all youth, reporting youth demographic information, including eligibility barriers, is very important.
    1. Programs should report all eligibility barriers for youth when youth have multiple barriers so that program staff, states, and the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) accurately represent the youth we serve.
      1. There is one exception to reporting all youth eligibility barriers.
        1. For ISY, the only individual barrier being used to determine eligibility is that the individual requires additional assistance to complete an educational program or secure or hold employment.