How should a prospective financial planner determine which of the 179 financial planning programs now accredited by the CFP Board provides the best preparation for success? of results of the FPA Financial Planning Challenge direct students for an answer.
Since 2010, the Financial Planning Association has invited colleges with CFP Board-registered financial planning programs to compete in the FPA Financial Planning Challenge each year.
Each year, the FPA selects the eight highest-scoring college teams based on three rounds of evaluation to compete at the FPA national conference for top honors. 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.
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: