I graduated in 1993 and going back through my old Quickbooks file, my 1993 IRA contribution went to a broad-based fund at Twentieth Century (now American Century). It was a half-year of working and all I could scrape together was $2000 and they accepted it to invest. I suspect making a mutual fund investment for $5000 (over $10,000 today) would have been possible three years prior.
Amusingly, for 1993, looks like you maxed out what you could even do in an IRA?
Searching for "Vanguard S&P mutual fund minimum 1993" shows that many had a minimum of 3000? I'm guessing that is the same general search you were doing?
I'm torn, as I want to think this isn't wrong. However, I also remember you could buy a car for 10k EASY in the early nineties. Was a pretty decent sum to make in a year. Especially if it was on top of all other expenses. I'd also hazard that for many, getting a car to commute to a job would have probably been a better investment. (Of course... this is only true if you use the car for the added productivity.)
Interesting that the limit was that low. I remember having to borrow money to make the $2K investment before the deadline, but didn’t realize that was maxing it out. (My dad was the one telling me to do it; I’d have been entirely clueless at that point otherwise.)