Growing up, George Allen knew that his parents "weren't very good with money."
"I've seen their mistakes. I want to be better in that aspect," Allen, a student in the School of Financial Planning at Texas Tech University, said in an interview.
He wasn't sure what career would encompass that. But one day in his junior year of high school, he decided to call
"I was like, 'Hey, I have a really weird question. I don't really know exactly what you do. I know you work with money. I think it might be something that I want to learn more about,'" Allen recalled.
Lyons offered to let Allen shadow him at his job. "And I was like, 'Okay, I think I really do like this.'" Lyons then guided him to search online for colleges with top CFP programs, and Allen ended up enrolling at Texas Tech. Today, he is starting coursework there for an accelerated bachelor's to master's program in financial planning, with his second industry internship already lined up, and wants to become a financial planner incorporating his faith into his practice.
Allen is now coming off a major win for his résumé. Earlier this fall his Texas Tech team clinched the championship at this year's Financial Planning Challenge, a national collegiate industry contest jointly sponsored by the Financial Planning Association, the CFP Board and Ameriprise.
In Allen's case, a career that now seems inevitable — in an industry that he's already become a modest poster child for, in some respects — could have passed him by.
He hadn't learned about financial planning jobs earlier in high school, and he's spoken to many other students who also didn't have the profession on their radar.
"Maybe they're getting a business degree or something. And they're like, 'Yeah, I want to work with money, but also I love to talk to people,'" Allen said. "And I'm like, 'Financial planning is exactly what you want!' And they just don't know that it exists."
Building the next-gen pipeline in colleges
Recruiting and developing young talent is a must for an industry whose
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In many respects, the industry has high potential to appeal to young workers and offers strong prospects. Personal financial advisor jobs are projected to grow 13% between 2022 and 2032, which is "
These careers can offer flexible working hours, with many firms permitting hybrid or remote work post-COVID, and a sense of meaningful work when serving clients. They also pay comparably well, despite being cheaper to obtain the education for. The median annual salary for all personal financial advisors
But despite the many perks of working in financial planning, it's missed many students who otherwise could have been a great fit, industry experts say.
"It starts with universities recruiting high school students to understand about these majors and these different professional pipelines," said Brandon Ratzlaff, a CFP who is director and wealth advisor at Cypress Point Wealth Management, a registered investment advisor in Dallas. Ratzlaff is an alum of Texas Tech University, where he teaches financial planning courses. He has had Allen, Olsen and Hoopes in his classroom — students who burn with a "fire" for financial planning work, he said.
Other students, who might have enjoyed financial planning but don't know about the career will miss the chance to prepare while in college "to be the ideal type of candidate for those firms," he said. "If you're a lawyer, or if you want to be a lawyer as a young kid, you know that lawyers exist," he said, adding that it was the same with doctors. But within financial services, many universities and business schools prioritize other career paths, he said.
"Business schools think about: 'Well, what kind of concentrations do we want to have within a finance program?' Typically, it's going to be something more on the investment front or private equity front, or alternative investments front, but not so much on the financial planning," Ratzlaff said. Although the
"What universities don't realize, is that these are very well-paying jobs." That means minting rich future alums who can be asked to support the school with donations, he said.
"I don't think that they see that this job that may pay $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000, will ultimately be a role that pays maybe upwards of a quarter million dollars — because you have private equity and investment banking jobs that start off over $100,000. … They don't see the future. They only see what happens at graduation."
Industry professionals might be able to help change that perception by forging closer ties to universities and making their talent needs clear, he said.
Even when a school offers a financial planning program, it's important that the administration invest in promoting it to the rest of the school, according to Michael Guillemette, a CFP and Ph.D. who is an associate professor in the School of Financial Planning at Texas Tech University. Guillemette coached the winning team of the FPA Challenge contest and has coached several other winning teams since he joined the school in 2017.
"The university is great. Texas Tech every year has a big article if we win [a competition] that's on the front page of the website."
The school also supports the financial planning program to offer practical resume-building and networking value to students — and their parents — beyond just research and teaching, Guillemette said, adding that too many schools focus on those to the exclusion of career preparation for students.
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"We are making sure that our students are attending national conferences and professional conferences, getting them internships … bringing our alumni back to hire our students," he said. "It creates this feedback loop where it not only benefits the students, but also brings in financial resources to the school — big firms, like Schwab, take notice, and that helps financially as well."
The Charles Schwab Foundation partners with the school on a one-week annual summer
The role of engaging high schools
Ideally, not only colleges but also more high schools should be part of helping young students consider financial planning careers, according to Carina Diamond, a CFP who is the founder and CEO of industry consulting firm Stella Secunda Partners.
Diamond is also a founding member and the new director of Diversitas, an organization based out of the Financial Planning Program in The University of Akron's College of Business, whose
"There have been a lot of misconceptions about financial planning and wealth management at large over the years," Diamond said of high school students. "There's a misperception that it's all about numbers. It's all about hard sales. You have to be really good at math."
Even high school "career influencers" like principals, guidance counselors and teachers have no idea, in many cases, what financial planners do, Diamond said.
When she began reaching out with Diversitas to some high schools in recent years, "I'll never forget this. We had guidance counselors and teachers saying to us, 'We had no idea what you people do.'" She laughed. "I love to be called 'you people'! ... They just said, 'We thought it was all people selling penny stocks in a boiler room, like the movies show.'"
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Once a couple of guidance counselors learned about the breadth of careers in wealth management — which Diamond refers to as
But getting there is the problem, which Diamond believes more advisors can help with, even if simply by coming into a local high school to talk about what they do. "The opportunity for education is immense," Diamond said.
"If you work in this profession in any role and you want to see the profession be sustainable, you have to take responsibility and find at least one person to educate about what it's all about."
