Year Up

Job training to close the opportunity divide

Year Up works to close the opportunity divide by providing young adults with the skills, experience and support that will empower them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. Year Up’s high support, high expectation model combines marketable job skills, stipends, internships and college credits. By focusing on students’ professional and personal development, Year Up places young adults on a viable path to economic self-sufficiency.

GreenLight launched Year Up in Philadelphia in 2013 after recognizing that a large number of young adults were disconnected from education and employment locally. Year Up Greater Philadelphia’s Professional Training Corps targets the area’s approximately 111,000 opportunity youth (18-24-year olds out of work and school), seeking to empower their success through meaningful workforce training and college completion. 

Year Up Greater Philadelphia transitioned away from the college-embedded model with Peirce College into an accelerated Talent Hub model in fall 2020. This model comes with benefits, including: increased program flexibility, a lower cost-per-student, the ability to serve a wider pipeline of young adults and employers, and early integration of YUPRO (Year Up Professional Placement) as a support to students and graduates.