City Name: Young Harris, Georgia
Population: 1,098
Region: South
Partner: Young Harris College
Problem: As a rural and small Southern city conducting their master planning process, City of Young Harris leaders identified gaps in their community with financial literacy and security. Combining these challenges with a population comprising largely local college students, city leaders wanted to meet the unique needs of students and their community at large.
Solution: As part of the 2025 Advancing Economic Mobility Rapid Grant program, the City of Young Harris launched two individual, separate financial literacy cohorts taught by local experts. Each cohort was targeted at either college students or local residents.
Outcome: With these two cohorts, the City of Young Harris vastly improved financial literacy for participants while setting foundations for future engagements with key local partners and institutions.
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Background
Located in the foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains in Northeast Georgia, the City of Young Harris is known as “The Enchanted Valley.” Despite its small population, roughly 800 of its residents are students at the local Young Harris College. Due to this large population of young people constantly entering the city and matriculating into the local and state workforce, financial literacy, career development and long-term wealth building represent a key priority for city officials. With a large share of the population and ownership of a significant portion of the city’s footprint, Young Harris College serves as one of the key drivers of partnership and integration with the city. Therefore, success of city-run programs should incorporate the needs of their college student residents.
Problem
To meet the goals laid out in the city’s master plan, many areas are experiencing investment, such as new housing construction, revitalization of existing buildings and new businesses. Despite being a growing community, the City of Young Harris officials noted a lack of opportunities for residents to develop long-term financial literacy skills.
As a small, rural city with limited resources, the City of Young Harris identified a need to develop and sustain programming to meet its residents’ needs. Part of this strategy includes creating and maintaining partnerships with local organizations, such as the college and financial institutions, to provide programming to residents at little or no cost to the city.
Solution
When NLC selected the City of Young Harris for the 2025 Advancing Economic Mobility Rapid Grant program, local leaders mobilized to launch two separate financial literacy cohorts: one for Young Harris College freshmen students and another for all other residents. Each target audience received a pre-assessment survey that captured their comfort with financial literacy topics, such as building a budget, understanding of credit and debt, and homeownership. The survey also captured initial participant feedback on the proposed course topics to shape the cohort curriculum.
Working with staff at a local financial institution to serve as the primary course instructor, the city team identified a series of four lessons per cohort. These lessons, tailored to each audience’s needs, ranged from budget making to understanding credit and managing debt. To incentivize participation, the city offered each of the courses at no cost, provided food and awarded a $200 stipend to participants who completed all four courses. In addition, the local financial institution provided opportunities for participants to open bank accounts and refer clients to other financial products.
Outcome
Across both cohorts, the city graduated more than 50 residents with 38 coming from the Young Harris College class and 17 coming from the general city populace. Comparing their pre- and post-surveys, both cohorts saw marked improvement in their confidence around financial literacy topics. For the college student cohort, topics such as financial independence and money skills resonated more with them, while the city cohort noted that the understanding credit class was most helpful.
Going into the start of 2026 with leftover grant funds, the city continued to expand their offerings into courses on tax season readiness and the power of tax credits . These courses, taught by a resident who is a CPA , provided another no-cost avenue for residents to engage with the city during the tax season.
Building on the initial success of their partnership with the city, Young Harris College utilized a substantial $15 million donation to launch the Professional Readiness & Experiential Programs (PREP) that provide soft skill development and career readiness for students. One of the established core focuses is financial literacy, emerging from the initial wave of interest in the first student program. This core focus utilizes many of the same structures and program design launched in the initial college student cohort.
This rapid grant provided not only a pilot to directly improve the lives of Young Harris residents but also opened pathways for future collaboration between key city institutions. Through this collaboration, the city expanded on existing relationships while utilizing their convening power to bring together multiple entities under one unified campaign. This investment in their relationships and residents showcases how the City of Young Harris can support its own economic and financial future.
Supporting Materials
- City of Young Harris Master Plan
- Young Harris College- Professional Readiness & Experiential Programs (PREP)
- November 2025 City of Young Harris Newsletter
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