This summer, 13 students congregated in a George Washington University School of Business classroom and an investment lab. They discussed corporate return on equity, capital allocations, stock buybacks, portfolio diversity and price-to-book ratio. The immersive learning experience closed with individual student presentations before a panel of judges on the investment pros and cons of specific publicly traded companies.
Although they were speaking from the front of a university classroom, these were not college students. Rather, they were teenagers from a D.C. public school taking part in the GW Business Finance and Economics—FinEcon—Academy.
The academy, taught by faculty in the Department of Finance, is designed to spark local high school students’ interest in economics, finance and real estate education, as well as careers in those fields.
“Not many high school students do something like this in the summer. I sat in on one of the sessions where [Professor of Finance and Economics] Robert Van Order talked about real estate, and I wished I was 17 again and had had that same opportunity then,” said Joseph Miranda, assistant dean of operations at the School of Business. “We’re getting these students excited about learning. We’re teaching them things that are useful even outside of college. And we hope the interaction sparks their interest in coming to college, if they are not planning to do so already.”
The students, mostly juniors, came from D.C.’s Columbia Heights Education Campus, where they were enrolled in a finance pathway program. High school juniors Amina Collins and Roxana Ayala were awarded top honors for their June 20 corporate assessments, which closed the program.
Each of the stock pitches took the form of an audio-visual presentation followed by questions from the three judges: Van Order, who is also the Oliver Carr Chair in Real Estate; Associate Professor of Finance Arthur Wilson; and Sonya Rankin, a retired business leader with investment expertise. Rankin, married to GW President Ellen M. Granberg, has lent her expertise to other activities on the campus.
School of Business Interim Dean Vanessa Perry told the students they had done the kind of work expected of GW students.
“The goal is to inspire high school students to become the next generation of leaders in finance, in real estate, in business,” Perry said in announcing the stock pitch winners. “We also want you to experience what it’s like to be a college student.”
Collins analyzed multinational company Lululemon because she is a fan of its athletic wear. She aspires to be an entrepreneur and said real estate is a field that interests her. She noted that FinEcon coincided with her final week of 11th grade.
“I didn’t feel like I was in class,” she said of the academy. “It was engaging, and they gave us fun activities.”
Next on her summer calendar? A 10-day study abroad project in Rwanda.
Ayala, meanwhile, said she originally hoped to research Planet Fitness, but another student chose that company so she jumped to Costco Inc., where her family shops. She told the judges she gave Costco a nine-point rating—out of 10—for being a well-managed company with low debt and low employee turnover.
“For me, the presentation was challenging,” Ayala said. “I’m shy, and I was nervous presenting in front of the whole class.” Nonetheless, she, too, described the School of Business academy as “fun.”
“I liked the people who came and talked to us,” she said. “Since 10th grade, I have wanted to do something related to business. I’m really interested in studying accounting.”
Ayala has a summer internship lined up with a finance firm, and she is beginning a dual enrollment program with Montgomery College, in Maryland, enabling her to take college classes for credit while still in high school.
Other student stock pitches ran a broad spectrum, from tech giant Nvidia Corp. with a market capitalization of over $3 trillion, to the 19-year-old fast-casual food chain Cava, headquartered in D.C.
Thomas Hern, the finance teacher at Columbia Heights Education Campus, selected the 13 students who took part in the FinEcon Academy. He said they had some exposure to finance and investment issues in their high school program, but he was impressed by their GW presentations. He is now thinking about adding stock pitches to his classes.
“We’re all about preparing our students for a career and to be good citizens, to be articulate and to be comfortable with public speaking,” Hern said. “It takes a lot of courage to get up and speak to a panel of judges like that. I think they did well.”
The weeklong FinEcon Academy builds out from a one-day immersion program the Department of Finance has organized each semester since January 2024, with GW business students also assisting the high schoolers.
FinEcon Academy is the brainchild of Van Order.
“I began thinking about it in 2020,” Van Order said. “I thought, ‘Why can’t we do what we do best, which is education?’ I think of education as an investment, and these [high school] students are the human capital.
“I wanted the students to learn but I also wanted them to get their fingers dirty with the data,” he added. “The engagement of the students at FinEcon was quite good. I think the academy went well, and I hope we can continue to expand it.”