Imagine a class where your homework can earn—or lose—real money. You don't just study market forces, you live them, navigating the same stock swings, unexpected headlines and strategic decisions faced by professional investors.
And you do it all with millions on the line.
Welcome to the Student-Managed Fund, a finance course turning theory into reality by putting students in control of a real investment portfolio.
“They run the class. They vote on the trades. They make the decisions,” said Associate Professor Tim Carpenter. “Students are analyzing and responding to events as they unfold. They interact with the world and grow to understand it better, building their critical thinking and decision-making skills.”
Launched in 2004, the Student-Managed Fund is a blended equity/income investment account whose seed money was supplied by Roanoke College’s endowment to create a living laboratory where students get experience in market analysis, risk management and ethical stewardship.
Students rose to the challenge and exceeded it, consistently outperforming benchmarks. In 2025, their work propelled the fund to $2 million in value — four times its original worth.
“Students are analyzing and responding to events as they unfold. They interact with the world and grow to understand it better, building their critical thinking and decision-making skills.”
Associate Professor Tim Carpenter
That milestone reflects years of dedication by generations of Maroons. Rick Boccard '05, now an account executive for global tech leader Salesforce, cited the real-world experience he gained from the program as a key factor in his career path.
“It was a unique experience that gave us real autonomy,” he said. “You learn to work with money, come to a consensus as a team and make decisions based on real data. Doing that is what made me feel I could move to New York and land an internship, something that seemed like a pie-in-the-sky thing before. I really credit the Student-Managed Fund with opening doors to the experiences that led me to a career I love.”
Roanoke was an innovator in student-managed investing. Few such funds existed 20 years ago when most schools, if they had a program, relied on simulators that distanced students from the pressures and responsibilities of managing assets. At Roanoke, students not only make trading decisions, but learn the intricacies of upholding investment policies and fiduciary obligations.
And the fund continues to break new ground, becoming one of the first programs in the nation in 2019 to add a cryptocurrency portfolio to its assets. That was done with a generous donation from Micah Spruill ’11, co-founder and CIO of S2F Capital, a digital asset hedge fund.
The crypto fund has also grown under the students’ oversight and briefly crested at $1 million last year, a new chapter in preparing students to shape the future of finance.