Marc Ethier
5 min read
During TMIA’s semi-annual advisory meeting last fall, program fund managers helped celebrate the fund’s 30th year. Texas McCombs photo
What’s it like to manage $25 million before even finishing your MBA?
At the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, a select group of students does just that. Through the Texas McCombs Investment Advisers program, one of the largest and longest-running student-managed funds in the country, MBA candidates research, pitch, and invest real capital in public markets, under real scrutiny — and with real consequences.
“This isn’t a simulation,” says Joshua Kocher, McCombs finance lecturer and CEO of TMIA. “Our students are managing real money, and they’re held to the same standard as any professional analyst.”
UT Austin McCombs’ Joshua Kocher: “We want students to walk away knowing how to analyze companies, build a portfolio — and sell their ideas”
It’s a model that has helped power TMIA to a standout position in business education. With $25 million in assets under management and a legacy stretching back to 1994, the program is now celebrating 30 years of hands-on training and the launch of more than 500 careers in finance.
The TMIA story began when finance professors Keith Brown and George Gau launched the MBA Investment Fund LLC. It was the first legally constituted private investment company managed by students, seeded with $1.6 million from 37 outside investors.
Over time, McCombs added the Growth Fund (1994), the Value Fund (1999), and the Endowment Fund (2001), giving students deeper exposure to varied investment strategies. In 2020, outside investors were bought out, and the program was restructured as Texas McCombs Investment Advisers, LLC — an internal adviser backed by institutional partners.
UTIMCO (the University of Texas Investment Management Company) committed $7.5 million, and the McCombs School Foundation provided additional capital. Today, TMIA oversees two main portfolios: the Longhorn Fund, a U.S. equity fund benchmarked to the S&P 500; and the Endowment Fund, a globally diversified, ETF-based portfolio tracking a 60/40 stock-bond mix.
TMIA is structured as a yearlong course, with students responsible for both an individual pitch and a group pitch each semester. They present to investment counselors — seasoned alumni and industry professionals — and eventually to a formal advisory committee of finance practitioners.
“They get beat up,” Kocher says. “But that’s the point. It prepares them for the scrutiny they’ll face on the job.”
