A Conversation With Philadelphia

There are 70,000 adults in the City of Philadelphia who started college and never completed their degree. We want to help them get their diploma so they are better able to compete for jobs that pay family sustaining wages. Right now, there are more jobs available than people who are qualified (i.e. have a college degree) who can fill them. So our work not only benefits the individual who gets their degree, but the City as a whole.

Sallie Glickman (Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board), David Thornburgh (The Pennsylvania Economy League). Later, the United Way joined as a managing partner.. Our college and university partners were key in planning the work and continuing to make our work so successful.

We hope to reach at least 1,750 new adults per year with information about how we can help adults return to school to complete their degree. It would be outstanding if 650 of these adults would be enrolled during the year.

Philadelphia is a wonderful city with lots of great cultural programs (I especially love the Fringe Festival and Ballet X), food (Philadelphia is more than just soft pretzels and cheese steaks, thank you), higher education opportunities (did you know that we have over 100 colleges and universities in our region?), etc. I love that it’s small enough that you know everyone but big enough that there are always new places and things to explore!