In the past three years this group of dedicated students has quietly managed a $50,000 investment that’s now an endowed scholarship fund worth $300,000.

A donation from Oberlin alums Bela Szigethy ’77 and Stewart Kohl ’77 has evolved into a diverse portfolio driven entirely by students. The College’s Student Finance and Investment Club sprang from Oberlin’s Business Scholars Program, in which students from all majors get exposure to the fields of finance and consulting during winter term. The business scholars program was also made possible with support from alums Szigethy and Kohl, comanagers of the Riverside Company, a private equity firm in Cleveland.

The chartered student group meets weekly to research, analyze, and make decisions about stocks and investments. Most, but not all, of the club’s members are economics majors with a common interest in finance, says Graham Johnson ’08, co chair and fourth-year double-degree student majoring in economics and music theory and music history.

In addition to managing a portfolio, the club invites alumni and guest speakers from the finance industry to help educate members.

“We encourage students to apply what they learn in the club in their own lives, whether it’s managing their own stock portfolios and investments, or if it’s a way of thinking about making financially responsible investments and predicting long-term performance,” says Johnson. “It’s a great way to network with alumni and see what the finance industry is about.”

Earlier in the year, Oberlin’s development office helped raise an additional $200,000 in alumni gifts, says James Howard, director of principal gifts. Szigethy gave $100,000 with a challenge to match that amount with support from other alumni. Howard said earnings from the endowment fund will be used for need-based scholarships.

The group is still in its infancy compared with finance clubs at other colleges, says Associate Provost David Cleeton, the club’s faculty adviser. At College of Wooster, for instance, the student investment club began in 1982 and now manages nearly $1.4 million. The important distinction, Cleeton says, is that compared with other colleges, Oberlin does not have a business major. Still, Cleeton says that through the years, Oberlin has had a strong contingent of students interested in working in the financial sector.

Finance isn’t the only name of the game for this group of students. This year also saw the launch of the Oberlin Student Philanthropy Club (OSPC), which Johnson co chairs with James Hepp ’09. Last spring, Oberlin received a $10,000 gift from an anonymous donor with the provision that funds be given to charitable groups in the community. The donor also stipulated the creation of a student-run organization to disburse the funds and become actively involved in philanthropy. Johnson and several other members of the finance club came aboard to create OSPC.

Johnson says the entire donation will be given out in the spring. The anonymous donor has offered to give $10,000 next year if students can raise an additional $10,000 from other sources.

"We’re trying to raise an endowment that would be managed by the finance club,” says Johnson, who has aspirations of being a teacher or working in the nonprofit sector.