University students at 30 schools across the country will now be able to earn a certification from eMoney Advisor, the company announced Wednesday. The wealth planning software marked the third year of its University Program by partnering with post-secondary institutions that offer training for the next generation of financial planners.
Program directors and instructors who participate in the program are given free eMoney software licenses for their students, providing a broad, real-world training experience, said Matthew Schulte, head of financial planning at eMoney. The online training takes approximately 12 hours to complete.
The longer term plan is to expand both the scale of the University Program and the applicability of the certification.
“Part of the impetus was to build this inside of a learning management system that would allow us to scale it well beyond the 30 schools who are participating today,” said Schulte. He hopes to add another 15 partner schools by spring 2019.
That expansion could also mean bringing advisors into the classroom, so that students can learn more from lived experience. Schulte is working on curriculum content that would allow advisors to “give back to the profession,” he said.
The certification program is also a step toward building a job board service, where students or grads looking for work will be able to find employers looking for new talent. “We’ve got the proximity and the relationships with the firms who are looking to hire people with this kind of experience, so we’re able to match them up,” said Schulte.
The job board, which eMoney is aiming to have available for students graduating in 2019, will allow eMoney to gauge student placement among firms and will help students find jobs and internships.