The National Investment Challenge

The market doesn’t wait for you to grow up. The National Investment Challenge (NIC) trains students to win the long game in investing. Built by the Council for Economic Education in partnership with Vanguard, the NIC is one of the first competitions dedicated to the capital markets, where the sharpest young minds run a live investing simulation, get hit with curveball case studies built to force real-time strategy shifts, and defend investment strategies out loud. Throughout the competition, students will use Vanguard’s new My Classroom Investor, a free, ready-to-use investment simulation that provides hands-on experience setting financial goals, building portfolios, and making investment decisions to help achieve those goals. The competition maps to Vanguard’s investment principles, CEE Standards, and the CFA Investment Foundations exam, so students are not just competing — they’re building credential-ready skills. Learn. Compete. Invest.