The team of three undergraduates, led by a faculty adviser, won the national competition after a series of three phases that began in June.
Texas Tech University’s School of Financial Planning within the College of Health & Human Sciences won the Financial Planning Association (FPA) Financial Planning Challenge for the second year in a row. This national competition is for undergraduate degree programs registered with the Certified Financial Planner® (CFP) Board. The purpose is to engage students in a holistic financial planning learning experience to expand awareness of the professional community and organizations that support the profession.
The winning team, led by faculty adviser Michael Guillemette, consisted of undergraduate students Andrew Matz, Kali Mazumdar and Marissa Kalina. They began phase one of the challenge in June with a financial planning case study for a hypothetical client. The students assessed the client’s needs and prepared a comprehensive financial plan based on the data provided without the use of commercially available financial planning software.
By the end of July, Texas Tech was selected as one of the top eight student teams based on their case submission. Phase two took place Sept. 18 with the financial planning case study oral presentation, followed by phase three the next day with the “How Do You Know?” Challenge. This game-show style contest tested the team’s knowledge of comprehensive financial planning across the seven disciplines through questions based on relevant financial planning learning objectives similar to the CFP® exam topics, as well as questions related to the case study and hypothetical clients.
Matz, Mazumdar and Kalina’s win secured a $10,000 scholarship to Texas Tech that they will split and a full scholarship to FPA's highly acclaimed Residency Program. Guillemette commends the outstanding dedication and hard work of this team and four other Texas Tech teams in the past seven years who have also won the FPA Financial Planning Challenge and earned more than $50,000 in scholarship funds.
“We are incredibly proud of Marissa, Andrew and Kali for representing the School of Financial Planning,” Guillemette said. “Their achievement sets a high standard and reinforces our position as having the top financial planning students in the nation.”