In recent research, metaheuristic strategies stand out as powerful tools for complex optimization, capturing widespread attention. This study proposes the Educational Competition Optimizer (ECO), an algorithm created for diverse optimization tasks. ECO draws inspiration from the competitive dynamics observed in real-world educational resource allocation scenarios, harnessing this principle to refine its search process. To further boost its efficiency, the algorithm divides the iterative process into three distinct phases: elementary, middle, and high school. Through this stepwise approach, ECO gradually narrows down the pool of potential solutions, mirroring the gradual competition witnessed within educational systems. This strategic approach ensures a smooth and resourceful transition between ECO's exploration and exploitation phases. The results indicate that ECO attains its peak optimization performance when configured with a population size of 40. Notably, the algorithm's optimization efficacy does not exhibit a strictly linear correlation with population size. To comprehensively evaluate ECO's effectiveness and convergence characteristics, we conducted a rigorous comparative analysis, comparing ECO against nine state-of-the-art metaheuristic algorithms. ECO's remarkable success in efficiently addressing complex optimization problems underscores its potential applicability across diverse real-world domains. The additional resources and open-source code for the proposed ECO can be accessed at https://aliasgharheidari.com/ECO.html and https://github.com/junbolian/ECO.