Making The Grade College programs offer real-world business experience.

University students today no longer covet management positionswith high salaries and stable pension plans. Scared off by thedownsiz- ing of corporate America, they're becomingentrepreneurs instead.

Nationwide, schools of entrepreneurship are turning thesetalented students--and their fledgling businesses--out into theworld. And because students who double as business owners canaccess state-of-the-art computers, research libraries andentrepreneurial professors who give free business advice,they're in a critical position to prepare themselves for thereal world.

But even with such incentives, college entrepreneurship has itspitfalls. "It's difficult to give the business theattention it needs," says William D. Bygrave, director of theArthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College inWellesley, Massachusetts. "And if the business grows rapidly,the student might drop out of school."