In 2024, the CFP Board accredited 179 undergraduate faculties getting ready college students for careers in monetary planning. How is a potential monetary planner supposed to find out which program gives the very best preparation for achievement? The outcomes of the FPA Monetary Planning Problem level college students to a solution.
Every year since 2010, the Monetary Planning Affiliation has invited faculties with CFP Board-registered monetary planning applications to compete within the FPA Monetary Planning Problem. Scores of faculties yearly discipline groups of their greatest monetary planning college students.
Primarily based on three rounds of analysis, annually, the FPA selects the eight highest-scoring faculty groups to compete for high honors. The groups are put to the take a look at on the FPA’s nationwide convention. They compete in a rigorous closing testing understanding of monetary planning ideas, analytical skill, technical rigor and presentation expertise judged by a panel of working monetary advisors.
The highest three finishers go residence with scholarship prizes, bragging rights for the varsity’s monetary planning program and enhanced profession prospects for the scholars on the profitable groups.
The FPA Monetary Planning Problem serves as a pure experiment to determine essentially the most profitable faculty applications getting ready undergraduate college students for careers in monetary planning. Aggregated over a decade, the Monetary Planning Problem outcomes yield a dataset that shows outstanding validity.
The Three Phases of the FPA Monetary Planning Problem
Now in its 14th 12 months, the FPA Monetary Planning Problem competitors is tailor-made for undergraduate monetary planning diploma applications at faculties and universities registered with the CFP Board. Three rigorous phases make up the Monetary Planning Problem.
Within the first section, the FPA publishes an in depth case examine profiling two hypothetical shoppers. Pupil groups put together a complete monetary plan based mostly on the particulars of the case they choose. That is the type of monetary planning doc that each advisor prepares each day. Then, the FPA judges the standard of the plans and advances the eight faculty groups which have ready essentially the most skilled plans. The eight groups who submitted essentially the most excellent plans are invited to the following phases of the competitors which occur on the FPA’s nationwide convention.
In Section 2, the finalist groups orally current the plan earlier than impartial monetary planners, very similar to advisors current plans to real-world shoppers. The groups are judged on each the rigor of the content material and the standard of the presentation. Phases 1 and a pair of mirror the CFP Board’s Monetary Plan Improvement (Capstone) Course necessities.
In Section 3, the groups compete in a sport show-style monetary planning data contest referred to as “How Do You Know?” that assessments particular data in areas equivalent to property planning, insurance coverage and taxation. The staff that buzzes within the quickest with the fitting reply wins factors. Are You Smarter than a Faculty Monetary Planning Pupil? offers readers a way of the questions the scholar groups face.
The High Eight Universities for Monetary Planning
Primarily based on the combination outcomes of the Monetary Planning Affiliation’s Monetary Planning Problem from 2010-2023, the eight highest performing undergraduate monetary planning applications are:
- Kansas State College
- Texas Tech College
- Utah Valley College
- Fort Hays College
- College of Georgia
- Virginia Tech College
- Texas A&M College
- William Paterson College
Through the years, there was a outstanding consistency within the faculties represented by the groups advancing groups to the ultimate eight. For instance, up to now 13 years, each Kansas State College and Texas Tech College boasted 11 finalists. Utah Valley College groups superior to the finals eight occasions.
Methodology
We recognized the finalists of the Monetary Planning Problem from 2010 to 2023 utilizing knowledge submitted by the FPA. To find out the general rankings of faculties, we awarded 30 factors for each first-place end, 20 factors for each second-place end, and 10 factors for each third-place end. As well as, we awarded 5 factors to each faculty which fielded a staff that reached the finals, even when the staff didn’t safe a first-, second- or third-place place. The outcomes are summarized in Determine 2.
As an extra validation of the information, we made the same calculation, bearing in mind solely the outcomes of even years and odd years. We took this step to manage for the distorting impact that is likely to be brought on by a school fielding the identical distinctive staff over two or extra years of the competitors. When the calculations use solely outcomes from even years of the competitors, the outcomes match up precisely with the information set as a complete. Equally, outcomes from odd years mirror the information set as a complete.
Additional, WealthManagement.com thought of how quite a lot of indicators related to rating faculty applications might have predicted the outcomes of the competitors. These indicators embody: variety of monetary planning programs accessible, variety of school (full-time equivalents), variety of undergraduate college students, admission charge (calculated by dividing the variety of accepted college students by the overall quantity that utilized), completion charge (share of scholars who begin a level program and are in a position to full it, both on-time (4 years for a BA diploma) or on a delayed foundation (six years)), placement charge (increased placement charges recommend that the college supplies precious profession preparation and networking alternatives), tuition and charges (decrease tuition prices contribute to the next ROI by permitting them to recoup their funding extra rapidly by way of earnings).
Looking for the Secret Sauce
What makes the top-performing monetary planning applications so constantly profitable? Inspection of inputs such because the variety of courses, the variety of school, enrollment, admission charge or completion charge fails to disclose any benefit. Nor does faculty tuition correlate with success.
One metric appears vital: All the top-performing colleges are public establishments. On condition that roughly half of the 179 faculties registered with the CFP Board are non-public faculties, the truth that the top-performing faculties are all public establishments stands out. Maybe public faculties are inclined to have bigger enrollments, thus rising the pool of expertise monetary planning groups can draw on.
A correlated issue is that faculties that provide superior levels in monetary planning (MS and Ph.D.) additionally are inclined to outperform colleges that provide solely BS levels. Public faculties have a tendency to supply extra graduate applications than non-public faculties. Ultimately, we consider it’s probably that the assets of public establishments have an outsize affect on success. Probably vital, though not possible to measure, is the dedication and dedication of the school assigned to be the tutorial advisor of every staff.
The High-Ranked Packages
All the accredited monetary planning ranked by WealthManagement.com are high quality applications targeted on getting ready candidates for the CFP examination. The top-ranked applications typically show a mixture of the next standards: a excessive variety of completions reported to the CFP Board; excessive retention, commencement, and pass-fail charges; and a excessive ratio of school who’ve earned CFP credentials.
Conclusion
The worth of training is more and more scrutinized, and potential college students usually grapple with the daunting job of choosing the faculty program that unlocks essentially the most worth as they put together for careers in monetary planning. The choice is not nearly educational rigor or campus life—it is also in regards to the return on funding (ROI).
John Kador is a enterprise writer and frequent contributor to Wealth Administration. He’s based mostly in Winfield, PA. Katie Tschida, a registered affiliate on the West Coast workplace of a nationwide impartial dealer vendor, is pursuing a graduate diploma in wealth administration at Columbia College.
