$10 million donation from Ric Edelman establishes new school of financial planning at university

Ric Edelman has spent four decades building a career around a simple conviction: ordinary people deserve the same quality of financial guidance that the wealthy take for granted.

That belief now finds its most ambitious expression yet in a $10 million commitment from Edelman Financial Engines to Rowan University, the New Jersey public research institution that helped shape him.

The gift establishes the School of Financial Planning inside the William G. Rohrer College of Business, creating a powerful new pathway for students who want to build meaningful careers guiding families toward financial security.

Edelman Financial Engines, the firm Ric and his wife Jean founded at their kitchen table in 1986 and which today serves more than a million clients with hundreds of billions in assets under management, is putting real capital behind the next generation of planners.

The $10 million gift funds the school’s operations and endowment. Classes are scheduled to begin as early as fall 2026.

Students will be able to pursue a major or minor at the undergraduate level, a master’s degree, certificates, and executive education, all designed with the Certified Financial Planner designation as a central goal.

The curriculum will emphasize both technical mastery and the communication skills that turn advice into lasting client relationships.

Ric Edelman himself will serve as the founding head of the school.

A Rowan alumnus and longtime university trustee, he already holds the titles of executive-in-residence and university-distinguished lecturer in the Rohrer College of Business.

He will work directly with faculty to shape courses and will teach in the programs. His wife Jean, also a Rowan graduate and current board member, has been a steady partner in both the firm’s growth and the couple’s extensive philanthropy to their alma mater.

Together they have given tens of millions over the years, including major support for the university’s fossil park and museum and its college of communication and creative arts.

This latest gift continues that pattern while focusing squarely on the profession Ric has spent a lifetime advancing.

Ralph Haberli, chief executive and president of Edelman Financial Engines, framed the investment in practical terms.

Expanding access to high-quality advice, he said, begins with investing in the people who deliver it. The firm has long championed financial literacy and education; the new school represents a structural commitment to building a stronger, more diverse pipeline of talent.

Rowan President Ali Houshmand called financial education a natural extension of the university’s public-service mission, noting that the partnership with Edelman Financial Engines and Ric’s leadership will allow the program to launch with unusual speed and credibility.

Matthew Sarkees, dean of the Rohrer College of Business, described the initiative as the start of a first-of-its-kind East Coast financial education ecosystem.

The college has grown rapidly, with business enrollment up 26 percent in three years, and already carries the rare dual AACSB and ABET accreditation.

The new school will sit inside that established infrastructure while adding industry partnerships, research opportunities, conferences, and networking that connect students directly to practicing planners.

For Ric Edelman the project is personal as well as professional.

He has long argued that financial planning ranks among the most meaningful careers available. His stated ambition is to produce the industry’s largest pipeline of CFP-ready graduates, eventually aiming for hundreds each year.

A companion Center of Financial Education will let planning majors offer peer counseling to Rowan’s broader undergraduate population.

The school will also collaborate with the Personal Finance Institute, a nonprofit Edelman launched to support continuing education for working planners and financial literacy for the public.

The gift arrives under the banner of Rowan University’s Forging Forward campaign, but its significance reaches well beyond one campus.

By placing a rigorous, industry-aligned program at a growing public university with strong regional reach, the initiative aims to expand opportunity for the next generation of advisors.

Ric Edelman remains the firm’s largest individual shareholder and continues as a strategic adviser and board member.

In that sense, the $10 million commitment is not simply a corporate grant. It is the tangible expression of one founder’s determination to ensure the profession he helped build continues to serve families with excellence and care for decades to come.