In 2024, the CFP Board accredited 179 undergraduate colleges preparing students for careers in financial planning. How should a prospective financial planner determine which program offers the best preparation for success? The results of the FPA Financial Planning Challenge point students to an answer.
Each year since 2010, the Financial Planning Association has invited colleges with CFP Board-registered financial planning programs to compete in the FPA Financial Planning Challenge. A large number of colleges annually field teams of their best financial planning students.
Based on three rounds of evaluation, each year, the FPA selects the eight highest-scoring college teams to compete for top honors. Teams are tested at the FPA national conference. They compete in a rigorous final test of understanding of financial planning concepts, analytical ability, technical rigor and presentation skills judged by a panel of working financial advisors.
The top three finishers go home with scholarship awards, bragging rights for the school's financial planning program, and enhanced career prospects for students on the winning teams.
The FPA Financial Planning Challenge serves as a natural experiment to identify the most successful college programs that prepare undergraduate students for careers in financial planning. Compiled over a decade, the results of the Financial Planning Challenge provide a database that exhibits remarkable validity.
The Three Phases of the VET Financial Planning Challenge
Now in its 14th year, the FPA Financial Planning Challenge competition is tailored for undergraduate financial planning programs at CFP Board-registered colleges and universities. Three rigorous phases make up the Financial Planning Challenge.
In the first phase, FPA publishes a detailed case study profiling two hypothetical customers. Student teams prepare a comprehensive financial plan based on case data they choose. This is the type of financial planning document that every advisor prepares every day. The FPA then judges the quality of the plans and advances the eight college teams that have prepared the most professional plans. The eight teams that submitted the most outstanding plans are invited to the next stages of the competition that will take place at the FPA national conference.
In Phase 2, the finalist teams present the plan orally to independent financial planners, just as advisors present plans to real-world clients. Teams are judged on both the rigor of the content and the quality of the presentation. Phases 1 and 2 reflect the CFP Board's Financial Plan Development (Capstone) course requirements.
In Stage 3, teams compete in a game show-style financial planning knowledge contest called “How Do You Know?” which tests specific knowledge in areas such as estate planning, insurance and taxation. The team that buzzes the fastest with the correct answer wins points. Are you smarter than a college financial planning student? gives readers an understanding of the questions facing student teams.
The eight best universities for financial planning
Based on the overall results of the Financial Planning Association's Financial Planning Challenge from 2010-2023, eight top-performing undergraduate financial planning programs are:
- Kansas State University
- Texas Tech University
- Utah Valley University
- Fort Hays University
- University of Georgia
- Virginia Tech University
- Texas A&M University
- William Paterson University
Over the years, there has been remarkable consistency in the colleges represented by the teams that advance to the last eight. For example, in the last 13 years, both Kansas State University and Texas Tech University boasted 11 finalists. Utah Valley University teams advanced to the finals eight times.
METHODOLOGY
We identified the Financial Planning Challenge finalists from 2010 to 2023 using data submitted by the FPA. To determine the overall ranking of the colleges, we have awarded 30 points for each first place, 20 points for each second place and 10 points for each third place. In addition, we have awarded 5 points to each college that fielded a team that reached the finals, even if the team did not secure first, second or third place. The results are summarized in Figure 2.
As a further validation of the data, we made a similar calculation, considering only the results of even years and odd years. We took this step to control for the confounding effect that might be caused by a college having the same exceptional team over two or more years of competition. When calculations use only results from even years of competition, the results match exactly with the data set as a whole. Similarly, results from odd years reflect the data set as a whole.
FurtherWealthManagement.com considered how a number of indicators related to the ranking of college programs may have predicted competition results. These indicators include: the number of financial planning courses available, the number of faculty (full-time equivalents), the number of undergraduate students, the acceptance rate (calculated by dividing the number of accepted students by the total number who applied), the rate of completion (percentage of students who start a degree program and are able to complete it, either on time (four years for a BA degree) or late (six years)), placement rate (higher placement rates suggest that the university offers valuable career preparation and networking opportunities), tuition and fees (lower tuition costs contribute to a higher ROI allowing them to recoup their investment faster through earnings).
In search of the secret sauce
What makes high performing financial planning programs so successful? Inspection of data such as number of classes, number of faculty, enrollment, acceptance rate, or completion rate reveals no advantage. A college education does not correlate with success either.
One metric seems significant: all high-performing schools are public institutions. Given that approximately half of the 179 colleges registered with the CFP Board are private colleges, it is notable that the top-performing colleges are all public institutions. Perhaps public colleges tend to have larger enrollments, thus increasing the talent pool that financial planning teams can tap into.
A related factor is that colleges that offer advanced degrees in financial planning (MS and Ph.D.) also tend to outperform schools that only offer BS degrees. Public colleges tend to offer more graduate programs than private colleges. In the end, we believe that it is likely that the resources of public institutions have a large impact on success. Likely significant, though impossible to measure, is the commitment and dedication of the faculty assigned as each team's academic advisor.
Top rated programs
All accredited financial planning listed by WealthManagement.com are quality programs focused on preparing candidates for the CFP exam. of top ranking programs generally exhibit a mixture of the following criteria: a high number of reported terminations to the CFP Board; high retention, graduation and pass rates; and a high ratio of faculty who have earned CFP credentials.
CONCLUSION
The value of education is increasingly scrutinized, and prospective students are often faced with the daunting task of choosing the college program that unlocks the most value as they prepare for careers in financial planning. The decision isn't just about academic rigor or campus life—it's also about return on investment (ROI).
John Kador is a business author and frequent contributor to Wealth Management. He is based in Winfield, PA. Katie Tschida, a registered associate in the West Coast office of a national independent broker-dealer, is pursuing a graduate degree in wealth management at Columbia University.