What did this agency do? Funded by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 the NYA provided work training based on U.S. citizenship and financial need for youth between ages sixteen and twenty-five. In addition to offering courses in writing, reading, and arithmetic, NYA operated two programs: the Works Project Program to train unemployed, out-of-school youth, and the Student Aid Program to provide work-study training for high school, college, and graduate students. The NYA helped over 4.5 million youths to find work , get training and/or be able to afford a better education.
Was it legal or ruled unconstitutional?
This was not ruled unconstitutional and was perfectly legal. It actually helped both women and men and it benefited everyone regardless of race.
Does it still exist today? / When did it all end? In 1943 the National Youth Administration was being locally and nationally harassed. Oklahoma Governor Leon C. Phillips, someone who hated the New Deal very much so , alleged that most of the convicts he interviewed for parole were former NYA trainees. Others who also opposed the New Deal argued that NYA was expensive and valueless, fostered shiftlessness, and trained no more than one-sixth of jobless youth. After heavy congressional debates, NYA was abolished in September of 1943. During the eight years it existed, the NYA trained more than two million nationally under the Student Aid Program and employed another 2.6 million youth through its Works Projects Program. The NYA provided Oklahoma with approximately 16.2 million dollars and benefited more than two hundred thousand youngsters.