Financial education for heirs: what family offices actually teach

Most family offices deliver some financial education to heirs, and most of it is informal. Bank of America's 2025 Family Office Study of 335 North American offices found that about 70% handle at least some next-generation education and family meetings in-house, and that the most commonly covered topics are taxes (received by 61% of heirs) and personal financial responsibility (60%). Investing, leadership, philanthropy and impact investing are covered less often and are the topics offices most frequently say would be beneficial. UBS's Global Family Office Report 2026 found that only 27% of offices have an organised process to educate or prepare the next generation, that offices see 18 to 29 as the right age to start, and that 52% of offices with limited next-generation involvement plan to introduce education or training programmes.

Who delivers it

Family wealth education is a standard service in larger offices and is mostly kept in-house. Morgan Stanley and Botoff Consulting's 2025 Single Family Office Compensation Report, covering 433 US firms, found 74% of single family offices provide family wealth education, falling to 64% among investment-focused offices. UBS's 2026 data shows that 64% of offices handle "preparation of the next generations" internally, 14% outsource it and 22% do not offer it. Bank of America found 69% handling next-generation education and family meetings fully in-house and 28% partially or fully outsourcing.

Satisfaction with what is delivered is low. The Campden Wealth and AlTi Tiedemann Global research reported in 2025 found that family engagement and education was the service most often added in the previous two years, by 23% of offices, and that education for the next generation was rated the least satisfactory of all services, with outside advisers rating it lower than family insiders did.

What is taught

Bank of America's 2025 study asked which topics heirs had received education on and which they had not received but could benefit from. The gap between the two columns shows where offices see their own shortfall.

Source: Bank of America Family Office Study 2025.

The pattern is that offices teach what they administer, which is tax and personal finance, and under-teach what the next generation will eventually have to decide, which is allocation, governance and philanthropy. Leadership training and philanthropy have the largest "could benefit" gaps at 39% each.

Ages and sequencing

UBS's 2026 data gives the clearest view of timing: offices most commonly see 18 to 29 as the age to begin preparing and educating heirs and 30 to 39 as the age for active engagement in decisions. The next generation thinks this is late. UBS's Next Generation Report 2026, as reported by Family Wealth Report, found 56% of inheritors believe parents should discuss wealth with their children earlier; 44% had their first conversation in early adulthood, 37% as teenagers and 17% in childhood. Bank of America's 2024 Study of Wealthy Americans found that 69% of parents of adult children had discussed family wealth plans with them, starting on average around age 31.

A common structure that follows from this is a three-stage curriculum: personal finance, budgeting and the meaning of the family's wealth in the late teens; investment basics, trusts, tax and the office's role in the twenties; and allocation, governance, philanthropy and committee observation from the late twenties onwards.

Uptake and gaps

Uptake depends on the principal. Bank of America found that 45% of offices with highly involved principals have governance structures specific to family education, against 36% of offices with less involved principals, and that offices under ten years old (31%) and offices with less than $500 million (29%) rank educating the family as their second-biggest challenge. Only 46% of offices reported that next-generation members had received cybersecurity education. UBS found that gaps in financial and governance education are the barrier most often cited by offices with limited next-generation involvement.

External providers

Offices that outsource typically use private bank next-generation programmes, business school executive courses, peer networks of inheritors and independent family advisers. None of the surveys cited here measures the effectiveness of these providers, and the Campden and AlTi satisfaction data suggests that buying a programme does not by itself close the gap. What the data does support is a written curriculum, a named owner inside the office, an earlier start than most offices currently make, and a route from education into participation through the investment committee, the family council and philanthropy.