Max Kavaljian retweetledi
I’m excited to be Founding Head of Rowan University’s new School of Financial Planning, in partnership with Edelman Financial Engines. We’re offering a minor, major and master’s, and we plan to produce more CFP-ready graduates than any other college in the country.
Just in time, too. Every day, 12,000 Americans turn 65 – creating a shortfall of 100,000 advisors by 2035. We’ll also make sure our new advisor corps is more diverse, compared to today’s, which is 80% white and 70% male. A more diverse advisor corps can more effectively serve the diverse communities that make up our nation.
The need for more advisors is huge: Fewer than 200 colleges and universities offer financial planning degrees – compared to 1,500 offering business, accounting, finance and marketing degrees. The result? Last year, 268,000 seniors graduated with those degrees. But financial planning? Barely 4,000 students got that degree.
It’s ironic, because financial planning is a far better career choice. Financial planning offers abundant job opportunities, is far less threatened by AI, offers some of the best compensation of any career in America, and can be performed anywhere. But the best reason financial planning is a great career is because of the people we serve, the lives we improve, the families we help.
And help is exactly what families need today. Most adults can’t correctly answer half the questions on a financial literacy quiz; they don’t understand inflation, diversification or compounding. No wonder they make bad financial decisions!
Only 70% of workers participate in their retirement plan, and most don’t contribute enough or choose the right investments – so almost all of them enter retirement with far less money than they need. The result: 65+ is the fastest-growing age group for bankruptcy filings. All because most Americans lack a financial planner. In fact, only 21% of adults have a written financial plan. No wonder most Americans are failing financially!
Clearly, we need more financial planners to help us end our nation’s retirement readiness crisis. And now, Rowan University is part of the solution, in partnership with Edelman Financial Engines, the firm Jean and I founded 40 years ago, now serving 1.3M households. Rowan students who become financial planners will change the lives of the people they serve – and they’ll be serving our nation at the same time.
I’m proud of the generous support of Edelman Financial CEO Ralph Haberli and the board. Through the Rowan University School of Financial Planning, we will lead the nation in efforts to create the next generation of financial planners, we will encourage other universities to partner with us, and we will foster financial literacy throughout our community and the country. I’m proud to be leading this important initiative. Want to get involved? Ping me at edelmanr@rowan.edu !
#college #RowanU #thetruthaboutcollege #financialplanning #personalfinance #financialliteracy #financialeducation #CFP
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