National champs: Personal financial planning student team wins 2015 Financial Planning Challenge finals
Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015
MANHATTAN — When it comes for planning for success, the Kansas State University personal financial planning student team can't be beat. The team won the national 2015 Financial Planning Challenge finals, Sept. 26-28, in Boston.
Team members, all seniors in personal financial planning, are Mariah Bausch, Hoyt; Hannah Rice, Manhattan; and Cole Foster, Tecumseh. The team's adviser is Ann Coulson, a certified financial planner and assistant professor in the School of Family Studies and Human Services, a part of the university's College of Human Ecology.
With the win, the team won a $10,000 scholarship for the personal financial planning program.
The Kansas State University team was among eight finalists selected after nationwide competition in which each team prepared a written financial plan for hypothetical clients. At the finals, the teams orally presented their case studies and participated in the "How Do You Know?" Challenge.
"What a team this was! They worked very hard doing the work and preparation for all three stages of the competition, which was intensely fierce," Coulson said.
Kansas State University is the only university to have made the finals in the competition every year since the competition began in 2001.
"The competition provides our undergraduate personal financial planning students with an opportunity to engage in a team environment while applying what they have learned from our faculty," said Dorothy Durband, director of the School of Family Studies and Human Services.
Second place went to the University of Akron and third place was won by Utah Valley University. Other teams competing were Texas Tech, Texas A&M, University of Georgia, Virginia Tech and William Paterson.
The challenge is sponsored by the Financial Planning Association, Ameriprise Financial and the Certified Financial Planners Board of Standards.
