Alaska Pacific University is offering a new scholarship with money from a student-managed investment fund

Alaska Pacific University has a new scholarship that stems from a student-managed real-world investment fund. The fund has grown from $200,000 in seed money to nearly $2 million since it started in 2001. The new scholarship offers up to $4,000 per semester for eligible students pursuing an undergraduate degree in business or and MBA. 

Alaska Public Media’s Ava White spoke with APU’s MBA Director and assistant professor of business, Lincoln Garrick. He says the fund started about 20 years ago, when Robert B. Gillam donated 100,000 dollars in seed money to the university. 

This script has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Lincoln Garrick: Basically, it’s a portfolio that students would be in charge of. APU matched that money 100%. So, the fund started with $200,000 and over the last 23 years, students have taken the class and purchased stocks and bonds and different financial securities.  

It’s grown and [the fund] was over $2 million and so a decision was made to peel off some of those unrealized gains, and create a scholarship program. We were looking at how big it was getting. It was getting to the point where it was maybe a little unwieldy for us as a class, to invest, and they still have that amount of diversification in it. 

One of the big inspirations here in creating this scholarship fund was to open up doors for folks who have interest in finance and have interest in business areas, but maybe don’t have the funds to make that happen in their lives.

AW: How unusual is this? I mean, do you know of any other schools that are using this model of a student managed fund that’s eventually providing scholarships for future students?

LG: Student funds are pretty common. Throughout the United States, a good number of them are virtual funds, meaning that they’re simulated, in that you work through a computer program and you invest pretend dollars. Some schools use actual dollars. 

I don’t know of too many who have had both the success that the APU student fund has had, and also have made the decision to take those unrealized gains and turn it into a scholarship program. 

AW: One thing I was really interested to see is that this fund created this class that you’re talking about, where students are actually getting to work on and grow this fund. And you’ve mentioned that you’ve actually taken this class yourself. Can you walk me through what the hands on aspect looks like?

LG: It is still, in many ways, a stock picking class.

It is a growth fund, meaning that the goal is to get as much gain as possible in the period of time that the course runs. But it’s also a very diversified fund. One of the ways that we mitigate risk the same way you would in a diversified portfolio, by having a basket of different types of goods, so that if one industry, like financial instruments, goes down, then you have a hedge against that downturn by having other things in the basket.

AW: You’re kind of hinting at it a little bit, but obviously this class is a learning experience, but everybody makes mistakes. So how do you balance keeping the class a learning experience while keeping it and making sure that students aren’t suffering the fund?

LG: You’re not going to torpedo the fund as a student. That’s just not going to happen. Through the lessons of the class, you are able to identify the best options within your particular industry.

We have some parameters around the fund. We don’t invest in emerging markets, we don’t invest in any of the areas like derivatives or shorting stocks. We would say the Russell 4000 is kind of our home turf.

AW: As someone that’s worked on this fund, this must be a really full circle moment for you. Can you talk a little bit about what this is like?

LG: I had no idea of what the world of finance looked like. I learned so many things through that class. How people view money is different based on how much they have. I think a lot of the learning goes beyond just picking stocks. 

But, the role of finance is really what I took from the class. Being able to take some seed money, invest it in companies based on sound financials, and then have those realized gains turn into opportunities for folks that come after you, 10 or 20, years later. I think [that’s] something poetic and remarkable.

Ava White reports on economics and hosts the statewide morning news at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at awhite@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8445. Read more about Ava here.