Ole Miss students manage real money in new investment group
Forty Ole Miss juniors and seniors are managing real money in a new student investment group, backed by a Hereford Family Foundation gift and run from the trading lab.
A new University of Mississippi investment group is putting 40 juniors and seniors in charge of real money, not a classroom simulation, and that makes the effort stand out inside the School of Business Administration. The Rebel Student Investment Group launched this spring after a major gift from the Hereford Family Foundation in Atlanta was directed to the Student Managed Investment Fund.
The group works out of the Ole Miss Analytics and Trading Lab, where students learn to pitch, analyze and debate securities in a setting built to resemble a professional investment firm. Fred Dewald, the instructional assistant professor of finance who directs the Trading and Analytics Laboratory, said the structure gives students practical experience that advances career goals and helps build a lasting finance legacy at Ole Miss.
Students are selected through a competitive application and interview process. Their work in Advanced Investment Analytics and the Tennessee Valley Authority Investment Challenge is part of that screening, and the group is organized into sector-coverage teams that study potential investments, present stock pitches and help shape portfolio decisions under faculty supervision.
The program is also part of a broader investing pipeline already in place on campus. The Ole Miss Finance Club says students there manage a separate real portfolio of $500,000 and meet weekly to make buy and sell recommendations and present performance reports. Ole Miss says the Tennessee Valley Authority Investment Challenge includes 20 universities competing over the academic year, and a recent finance profile said one student portfolio manager oversees a $20,000 slice of that larger fund.
That matters in Oxford and Lafayette County because it gives students direct experience with the kind of decision-making that can translate into local jobs after graduation. McClain Schieltz, one of the student participants, said the group gave him experience he would not have found elsewhere because it mirrors an investment banking environment and strengthens his résumé.
The finance curriculum at Ole Miss already emphasizes case studies and real-world data, including building corporate balance sheets and investment portfolios, so the student fund fits squarely within the way the business school trains majors. The University of Mississippi Foundation says endowed funds support student opportunities across campus, and Ole Miss said its campaign surpassed its $1.5 billion goal in June 2024.
For Oxford, the payoff is bigger than a single student club. The Rebel Student Investment Group gives future finance graduates a record of handling money, making recommendations and working in teams before they ever leave Lafayette County, a pipeline that can help keep talent, and the businesses that follow it, closer to home.
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