Stanford Financial Education Symposium

Formerly Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute

The 2025 Stanford Financial Education Symposium was held from April 10 to 11, 2025. Researchers from around the globe presented their work at Stanford University.

View the 2025 program

View photos from the 2024 conference

The Origins of the Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute

The idea for the annual Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute originated at the 2010 Colloquium held by the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE): Quarter Century Project: 25 Years of Research in Financial Education. For that event, an extensive body of research was collected and presented, but little consensus emerged about what makes financial education effective.

To further our understanding of the effectiveness of financial education, three researchers— Annamaria Lusardi of GFLEC, Michael Staten of the University of Arizona, and William Walstad of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln—organized and conducted a forum (or “Institute”) in April 2014 with researchers who were invited to discuss key research issues and works in progress. This first Institute was hosted by the Take Charge America Institute (TCAI) at the University of Arizona.

The success of the 2014 event led GFLEC to host a second Institute in Washington, D.C., in April 2015, funded by TCAI. This second Institute was named the Cherry Blossom Financial Education Institute and thus the annual event was born. The research committee selecting the papers for presentation consists of Professors Annamaria Lusardi, Michael Staten, and Alberto Rossi of Georgetown University.

Since 2024, the institute has been held at Stanford University. 

Previous Institutes

Learn more about previous institutes through the following links:

Stanford University

Washington D.C.

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