Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught? You bet it can--and in our 1st Annual Top 100 Entrepreneurial Colleges and Universities, we reveal which U.S. schools do it best.

In 1970, a national survey of business schools found just 16courses offered in entrepreneurship. Since then, entrepreneurialeducation has taken off like the Internet craze. Karl Vesper,University ofWashington management professor and entrepreneurship expert,did the groundbreaking 1970 study that, when repeated in 1997,uncovered more than 400 schools offering at least one course inentrepreneurship, and more than 50 schools with four or morecourses.

"Money, mostly" is the reason so many schools haveadded entrepreneurship to their offerings, says Vesper, whoexplains that colleges want to tap into donations from wealthyalumni. But the visibility of entrepreneurs in business in the pastthree decades has also played a role. As headlines blared about theinnovation and personal wealth that went hand-in-hand withentrepreneurs and start-up ventures, especially in the technologysector, the public became increasingly fascinated with start-upbusinesses and the risk-taking mind-set that defines theentrepreneur.

Entrepreneurial education arguably started at Harvard Universityin 1947 with a single course. In the mid-1980s, entrepreneurshipcame into its own, and programs sprang up offering entrepreneurshiptracks and even majors for MBA and undergraduate students. By theturn of the millennium, students could major or minor inentrepreneurship--even get a doctorate and join the professorsresearching and teaching entrepreneurial management and finance.Along with entrepreneurial degree programs, schools hold studentbusiness plan competitions, sponsor research centers and hostventure capital forums. Today, more than three dozen academicresearch journals are dedicated to topics ranging from familybusinesses, franchising and women entrepreneurs to corporateventuring, incubators and inner-city business development.