Two UVU students receive scholarships, ring the New York Stock Exchange trade floor bell
Tiffany Frandsen | Managing Editor | @tiffany_mf
Photos courtesy of TD Ameritrade
Every year, TD Ameritrade grants the NextGen Financial Planning Scholarship to 14 students across the country. This year, two of those recipients were UVU personal financial planning students Martha Tullis and Junghyun Lee—a reward that included going to New York City and ringing the closing bell on the trade floor of the New York Stock Exchange as TD Ameritrade’s guest on Wednesday, July 22.
TD Ameritrade has committed more than $2 million in higher-education funding to help close a gap in the world of financial advisors.
“We are extremely proud of these two young women representing the Woodbury School of Business in personal financial planning,” said Luke Dean, director of UVU’s personal financial planning program, in a press release. “Personal financial planning is a growing and promising career for women seeking a financially satisfying and flexible career.”
Of the 14 recipients, half were women. The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards launched an effort to attract more women into the industry, the Women’s Initiative, in 2013. WIN is also intended to discover the factors that lead to the shortage of women in the industry. In recent years, the percentage of women in the financial planning profession has remained steady at 23 percent, according to a report the CFP published in 2014.
The Registered Investment Advisor industry is growing fast, and graduation rates are below the need for new advisors (700 students graduated with bachelor’s degrees in personal financial planning throughout the nation in 2013, and only 90 higher-education institutions offer the program). For perspective, out of the roughly 1.8 million students who graduated in 2013; less than 3 percent received PFP degrees.
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics say the job outlook for personal financial advisors is at 27 percent between 2012 and 2022; the average growth for all business and financial-related occupations is 13 percent, and all occupations is 11 percent. BLS attributes the much faster growth to the population aging, which not only means current advisors will retire, but the rest of the baby-boomer population will start to retire. As retirement gets nearer, they will be in need of more financial planning advice on how to handle their retirement. With longer life spans—and thus longer retirement—the generation will need more advice on how to keep their finances smooth.
The BLS data projects 283,700 personal financial advisor jobs in 2022. The most recent numbers (2012’s data), has 223,400 held jobs. To keep up with industry demand, universities would need to prepare and graduate an average of 6,030 students a year into that marketplace.
“The bulk of RIAs are in their 50s and 60s, so in 10 to 20 years, they will retire and leave the business. A small percentage, six percent, are under 35. So the industry faces a shortage of talent unless RIAs find a new way to attract talent,” said Joe Giannone, the press representative of TD Ameritrade Institutional.
Thus, the scholarship. TD Ameritrade has also extended two grants to universities to implement and bolster their personal financial planning programs.
