I was a student PM for a year and a half in Houston. The fund has about 5MM of real outside investors money (not endowment). We vote on buy/sell decisions based on our own research and analysis. We did pretty well and I learned tons. Actually, it just makes you realize how much more out there to be learned.
From a Spring 2006 publication: Few fund managers have a record of consistently beating their benchmarks. But University of Dayton finance students do. That's why University of Dayton trustees are entrusting them with another $2 million to invest. That brings the total of undergraduate managed funds to approximately $6 million. "About 75 percent of money managers don't realize benchmark returns," said David Sauer, associate professor of finance and director of University of Dayton's Davis Center for Portfolio Management, "but our students have consistently beaten their benchmark by 3 percent every year for the last 5 years in both an up and down market."