Presidential Scholars Theses (1990 – 2006)

Awards/Availabilty

Open Access Presidential Scholars Thesis

First Advisor

Arthur Cox, Advisor

Keywords

Financial planners--Vocational guidance;

Abstract

Financial literacy in the United States stands at about 18% of the population according to the Investor Protection Trust's 1996 Investor Knowledge Survey. This figure includes the infamous baby-boomer generation which is now in the process of thinking about retirement and making major financial decisions. This need has fueled the growth of the financial services industry and particularly the field of financial planning. People today feel inadequate to the task of organizing their financial situation and making sound investment decisions. For help with this situation they often turn to a personal financial planner. But the search for a competent, trustworthy planner may be just as daunting as the thought of organizing their own finances. The problem lies in the fact there is little government regulation of the industry, no educational requirements, and little protection from fraud of the consumer. What potential clients do face is a baffling number of abbreviations for designations, associations, and services. To top it off, planners are compensated in a wide variety of ways and the consumer is left to judge which is the most appropriate without the opportunity to make a mistake or error in judgement. Yet they want to make a good decision since, after all, this is their hard earned money they're dealing with. Despite all of these daunting industry characteristics there is still a high demand for personal financial planners and those considering this field as a career can create their own path to success. It just takes some time to sort through the popular literature and develop an understanding of the basics of the industry and what it takes to succeed. This paper is devoted to making this task a lot easier by laying a foundation of the terms, conditions, trends, and nature of a career in financial planning.

Date of Award

1997

Department

Department of Finance

Presidential Scholar Designation

A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation Presidential Scholar

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this Presidential Scholars thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit an email request to scholarworks@uni.edu. Include your name and clearly identify the thesis by full title and author as shown on the work.

Date Original

5-10-1997

Object Description

1 PDF (15 pages)

Date Digital

4-5-2018

Copyright

©1997 Mikol Sesker

Type

document

Language

EN

File Format

application_pdf

COinS