EDitor’s ViEW
The Roadmap
A catalog of some of the nation’s top planning schools
is a resource for both planners-to-be and today’s advisors
Most
life insurance
companies
see policies.
As useful as our look at 25 great financial planning schools is for the people we hope will be reading Financial Planning in the years to come, it’s also invaluable as a roadmap for planners already in the business. Our list of some of the leading schools with degree and/or certificate programs gives
you a glimpse of where to recruit as your practice grows, or where those who may be
competing with you one day for clients are deepening their knowledge of personal
finance and beginning to form professional networks.
Our cover story (page 56) also illustrates the build-out
of the planning profession. We counted 336 CFP Board-registered certificate, undergraduate and graduate degree
programs, plus 40 more programs still in development.
In addition, many schools are bolstering their current
lineup, both on campus and online, trying to lure both
college-age financial planning students as well as career
changers. As the pace of growth in advisory academics accelerates, the dreams of a few visionary planners
decades ago may be realized: to see the field of financial
planning grow to the point where it is fully backed by an academic field.
That can’t happen too soon, says FP senior editor Ann Marsh, who wrote the cover
story and helped compile all the data for our list. “From a societal perspective,” she
argues, “so much private wealth is not well-managed — of both high-net-worth and
middle-class investors. With just a couple hundred thousand planners in the profes-
sion, most of the 115 million American households who need them go un-served. As
a result, the 25 schools that appear on FP’s list this year are playing a vital and valiant
role by pushing the entire field forward. Because planning is an inherently interdisci-
plinary practice, young planners today can also learn their trade in business schools
through a wide variety of departments that include finance, economics, psychology
and even agriculture. There are valid arguments for both approaches, which collec-
tively produce a crop of planners with a wide variety of expertise.”
That’s led to some thoughtful discussions on campuses across the country.
Northwestern University decided to revamp all of its certificate courses around
new CFP Board objectives. “It’s a massive curriculum overhaul,” Peter Kaye, North-
western’s dean of undergraduate and professional programs, tells Marsh. “We really
do want to have an educational program that reflects the skills that people need to
do the job well professionally.”
But before those skills can be developed, it’s vital that these programs are mar-
keted properly to attract students. As the woman on our cover, Katie Simmons,
tells Marsh, her choice of the advisory profession was hardly a long-term plan. “I got
lucky,” says Simmons, who was nearly lured into other fields. “I feel like this was a
really great last minute career choice.” Countless students and career changers will
find themselves at a similar crossroads. —Scott Wenger
