Top 50 Best Graduate Programs for Entrepreneurs in 2023 The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur have again partnered to rank the top programs for studying entrepreneurship as a graduate student.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
There are those who describe the current, faster-and-faster-moving marketplace as a fourth industrial revolution. And the best entrepreneurship programs are those that help students appropriately speed up and, when necessary, scale-up their ideas. Students who enroll at these schools will find themselves at the forefront of innovation and development, often with an interdisciplinary focus that acknowledges the interconnectedness of today's economy. And perhaps more importantly, they will also get opportunities to enrich themselves and their communities, adding economic and social value through innovation, team building, and leadership.
Related: Top 50 Best Undergraduate Programs for Entrepreneurs in 2023
Entrepreneurship encompasses so much that it's more than an academic discipline. Studying entrepreneurship involves building self-confidence and business connections alike, developing creativity, and getting real-world results. That's why we've worked with The Princeton Review for fifteen years to point students in the right direction of the top-ranked undergraduate and graduate programs for entrepreneurs. This year's survey considered more than 250 colleges and universities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe and evaluated a multitude of factors. We considered not just the school's programming but also its graduates' success rates in the business world, the number of mentors available for students, and more. Read on to see which schools made the grade. (To read more about our methodology, pick up the Dec. 2022 issue of Entrepreneur.)
Courtesy of Rice University1. Rice University (#1 Southwest)
Liu Idea Lab for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Houston, TX
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 39
Tuition: $63,162
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our entrepreneurship program emphasizes experiential learning and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Our classes are designed to ensure students get hands-on experience by working in teams and applying the entire-building process in real time under the guidance of entrepreneurial faculty and instructors from the industry. All of our entrepreneurship teachers have been founders, senior operators at growth-stage ventures, or venture investors.
Our students are investing real money, building solutions for physicians sourced directly from the medical district across the street, and solving design challenges for our alumni-owned companies. We facilitate interdisciplinary connections, ensuring teams are well-rounded in terms of experience and expertise. Our programs and courses combine students from across degree programs, like clinical, bioengineering, and business students collaborating to build innovative medical solutions. We cater to all graduate students, emphasizing the importance of the entrepreneurial mindset. Students are identifying an unmet need, prototyping hypothesis-driven solutions, acquiring customer and user feedback on the proposed solutions, testing hypotheses and conducting evidence-based iterations, and communicating novel and transformative ideas to diverse stakeholders. Whether our students will pursue finance, consulting, or marketing, we believe every student will benefit from mastering these skills.
Courtesy of University of Michigan2. University of Michigan (#1 Midwest)
Ross School of Business, Zell Lurie Institute; College of Engineering, Center for Entrepreneurship
Ann Arbor, MI
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 88
Tuition: $67,442 (in-state); $72,442 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
At the University of Michigan, our contemporary approach to delivering an entrepreneurial education is a strategic model focused on action-based learning that reaches far beyond the basics of launching a venture. At U-M, an entrepreneurial mindset is an essential shift in the perception of failure and opportunity, orienting our graduate students toward systems thinking – sparking creativity and innovation inside and outside the classroom.
With a broad mix of programs and cross-campus collaboration connecting students from our 19 schools and colleges, U-M students are immersed in an experiential approach to entrepreneurial education. Courses and opportunities outside of class support the entrepreneurial core that allows students to study the fundamentals of entrepreneurship while putting their knowledge into practice. Our students launch companies, invest real dollars in new ventures, intern for entrepreneurs globally, advise growing startups, participate in our business accelerator, and more.
Entrepreneurship is an interdisciplinary pursuit with opportunities in a variety of fields, including engineering, natural sciences, medicine, education, and more. Pursuing these opportunities requires building a team with a diverse knowledge base, including but not limited to management, technology, law, and finance. Michigan works to join these students through graduate course offerings and programs to produce successful and well-rounded ventures that develop innovative solutions.
Courtesy of Babson College3. Babson College (#1 Northeast)
Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship
Babson Park, MA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 40
Tuition: $71,564
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Babson College educates entrepreneurial leaders who create great economic and social value everywhere. Entrepreneurship is more than an academic discipline at Babson; it is a way of life. We teach entrepreneurship as a method so that students practice Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® (ET & A) in a variety of curricular and co-curricular settings, both on campus and around the world. Entrepreneurship is a required course for every single Babson student, and 70% of students take one of more than 70 electives. The entrepreneurship department has 51 faculty members; 23 full-time academics and 28 adjuncts, 100% of whom have both entrepreneurial and teaching experience. Our Price Babson Entrepreneurship Educators Program has used its unique pedagogy to train over 5,000 faculty.". Our campus is a living/learning laboratory with five entrepreneurial centers where students can pursue their passions for social innovation, start-ups, family entrepreneurship, women-led entrepreneurship, fashion, and food solutions, in accelerators, laboratories, and other immersive experiences. The Weissman Foundry is a unique prototyping and experimentation lab for our students. Babson'sculture encourages faculty, staff, students, and alumni to be entrepreneurial leaders all the time, exploring, pursuing, and growing initiatives and ventures.
https://www.princetonreview.com/schools/1011106?ceid=entrepreneur-grad4. University of California-Los Angeles (#1 West)
University of California-Los Angeles
Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
Los Angeles, CA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 30
Tuition: $73,091 (in-state); $73,091 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our comprehensive approach allows us to reinforce curriculum topics with active learning outside of the classroom. We've offered experiential fellowships for 40 years as well as a wide range of speaker programs, roundtables, and conferences in which students can interact with and learn from entrepreneurs at all stages. Entrepreneurship involves managing risk across a wide range of settings, and we work to help students develop the mindset and management skills to do so. Our students interact with entrepreneurs in the UCLA and LA ecosystems, as well as with students and faculty in UCLA's 11 professional schools, providing many opportunities for collaboration, growth, and innovation. Our growing set of healthcare innovation offerings are particularly well suited to Los Angeles and market needs, and our Accelerator and Business Creation Option programs allow students to test their skills, learn, and adapt before launching their ventures.
Courtesy of The University of Texas at Austin5. The University of Texas at Austin (#2 Southwest)
The University of Texas at Austin
Texas Master of Science in Technology Commercialization; Texas MBA Programs
Austin, TX
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 60
Tuition: $51,020 (in-state); $56,572 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
We leverage the Austin ecosystem with unique, hands-on programs that extend across graduate programs on campus and the greater Austin startup community. Students can go deep into their own startup, covering the early stage life cycle of venture creation, funding, and launch before graduating. We also provide students with hands-on opportunities to work with local area startups going through the same life cycles, including financing, so they can experience all these steps in real time across multiple companies before graduating.
New technologies are a strong component of our ecosystem. Our entrepreneurship students spend extensive time with new technologies recently developed at The University of Texas, Texas A&M Univ., and NASA. They perform in-depth assessments of these technologies and prepare business plans and launch plans for the most attractive ones. Each year several teams license the technologies they have analyzed. As an example, one team recently became enthusiastic about a heat-absorbing paint that could be used to reduce energy costs. They wrote a business plan focusing on the housing market, licensed the technology from NASA, and had sales before they graduated. From zero knowledge to first sales took only ten months.
Courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis6. Washington University in St. Louis (#2 Midwest)
Washington University in St. Louis
Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation & Entrepreneurship
St. Louis, MO
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 54
Tuition: $67,017
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Entrepreneurial education at WashU and Olin is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach, a focus on experiential learning, and rigorous standards for all academic outputs. The co-curricular opportunities provided by the Skandalaris Center reflect the same high standards. The Center encourages students to take action on new ideas and become creative problem solvers suited for today's changing economy. While many students choose to enroll in entrepreneurial programs with the goal of starting ventures, others seek to bring an entrepreneurial mindset into corporations and non-profits. Any student studying entrepreneurship at Olin Business School, and WashU as a whole, cannot leave our institution without interacting with students from other disciplines and the region at large. All of our Olin graduate students, regardless of academic focus, engage with entrepreneurship through an elective course, an immersive case experience or a hands-on startup consulting opportunity. This holistic, immersive approach separates WashU and Olin from their peers.
Courtesy of Northeastern University7. Northeastern University (#2 Northeast)
NU Center for Entrepreneurship Education
Boston, MA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 67
Tuition: $44,605
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
NU has been an innovator since creating its program in 1958. A reason for this is that we have always considered entrepreneurship to be a legitimate academic field. We tenured our first professor in entrepreneurship in 1973. We have tenure-track faculty who build courses based on their cutting-edge research. These faculty also create the textbooks for the courses, so we are creating pedagogy rather than just teaching what others have developed. The first NU entrepreneurship text was published in 1968. Entrepreneurship at NU is interdisciplinary, not only within the business school but also across campus. NU created the first free-standing school of entrepreneurship in 2001 in order to effect interdisciplinary activities with tenure-track faculty among five of our colleges. Our students work in cross-disciplinary teams regularly in class and so become accustomed to doing so when they start their ventures. Likewise, the teachers get put together in cross-disciplinary teams to teach the courses. We have, for example, courses taught by music and entrepreneurship professors and design and business professors. We also place an emphasis on student leadership. The programs in the NU entrepreneurship ecosystem are all run by the students themselves. NU's approach to entrepreneurship education is therefore distinctive because it is part of our DNA, it is tied to experiential learning globally, it is interdisciplinary, and it has an ecosystem driven by the students themselves.
Courtesy of University of Washington8. University of Washington (#2 West)
Arthur W. Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship
Seattle, WA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 75
Tuition: $36,759 (in-state); $53,601 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The University of Washington surrounds entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs with an extraordinary ecosystem for discovery and opportunity whether they want to create a unicorn or a small business. UW, its two branch campuses in Tacoma and Bothell, and the UW Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) in Bellevue are positively impacted by proximity to Seattle, a biotech, clean tech, space, retail, hardware, and software entrepreneurial juggernaut. UW students are at the heart of many of these companies, who in turn, collaborate on-campus with dozens of departments through workshops, guest lectures, hackathons, mentorships, and more. UW provides an inclusive place where they can achieve personal and professional growth without judgment. Graduate students work with global leaders in the Creative Destruction Lab, Amazon Catalyst, and Microsoft's Global Social Entrepreneurship program. Graduate students work with the Institute for Protein Design, the Clean Energy Institute, and Fellowships in technology commercialization and social entrepreneurship. The Maritime Innovation Center, CoMotion BECU FinTech Incubator, the Sound Credit Union FinTech Incubator, the WA Clean Energy Testbeds, and the WE-REACH Biomedical Entre Center offer highly innovative experiences as well. GIX brings together universities and organizations from all over the world for an interdisciplinary, project-based academic model. The entrepreneurial journey is celebrated from ideation to launch.
Courtesy of University of South Florida9. University of South Florida (#1 South)
Center for Entrepreneurship
Tampa, FL
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 138
Tuition: $8,537 (in-state); $16,472 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
We are strong believers in the power of experiential learning. This manifests itself in almost all the courses of our graduate program and certificate in entrepreneurship. In essence, this means extensive engagement of students with internships, startup simulations, small businesses and startups in the Tampa Bay ecosystem. For example, in the course on Strategic Entrepreneurship we work closely with the SBDC (Small Business Development Center), which has student teams work with a small company or startup on a very concrete problem. Student teams have the entire semester to address the problem by co-creating alternative solutions with the lead entrepreneur or business owner. In other courses, student teams work on a startup simulation of an innovative company launching 3-D printed carbon-fiber bicycles in the market. The simulation game allows for competition among the participating student teams. A significant portion of students also apply for a spot in our dedicated Student Innovation Incubator, which has produced over 150 ventures since its inception in 2013. Over the course of a six-week NSF-I Corps workshop, they discover the customer segment for their business concept. Last but not least, we offer students an international perspective by having them participate in a hands-on study abroad experience where student teams are being matched with startups in a foreign country.
Courtesy of The University of Oklahoma10. The University of Oklahoma (#3 Southwest)
Tom Love Center for Entrepreneurship
Oklahoma City, OK
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 23
Tuition: $33,307 (in-state); $52,898 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The combination of two factors makes graduate entrepreneurship education at OU distinctive. First, OU places a strong emphasis on innovation—it is a major university-wide theme. The MBA program facilities are located in Oklahoma City in the heart of the OKC Innovation District and adjacent to the OU Health Sciences Center. This proximity to centers of technological and scientific advances provides many opportunities for students to learn from and network with leading innovators. Interacting with faculty and post-docs who are commercializing technologies emerging from university labs provides MBA students with practical experiences. Second, the Tom Love Division of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development links the development of new ventures with the economic development goals of the state of Oklahoma. The focus on business development and job creation expands the scope and purpose of the entrepreneurship program. OU has expertise and facilities—like the Tom Love Center for Entrepreneurship, Irani Center for the Creation of Economic Wealth, and Tom Love Innovation Hub—to support students in all of their business endeavors. These resources provide graduate students with a unique opportunity to catalyze economic growth through entrepreneurship.
Courtesy of New York University11. New York University (#3 Northeast)
Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship
New York, NY
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 25
Tuition: $79,510
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Through a learning process that blends the real world with a rigorous academic environment, students are equipped with the frameworks, methodologies, and practical experience needed to navigate and thrive in rapidly changing business environments. We provide enriching programs such as:
- Extensive co-curriculum programs and services through the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship enable students to propel their startups further, and faster.
- Experiential courses such as the Endless Frontier Labs and Tech and the City, where students work closely with the founders of groundbreaking, life sciences, and deep tech startups.
- Consulting projects and internships with high-growth, venture-backed startups.
- Global treks that foster an understanding of startup ecosystems in other parts of the world such as Israel and India.
- A 1-year Tech and Entrepreneurship MBA that offers intensive study at the intersection of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Our focus is on nurturing entrepreneurial talent capable of launching and leading all kinds of transformative organizations, whether venture-backed startups, an audacious social enterprise, or a corporate division daring to challenge industry norms.
Stern is figuratively and literally at the center of the world's largest, richly diverse, and most thriving business ecosystem — New York. We leverage this unique positioning by deeply immersing our students in this dynamic environment.
Courtesy of The University of Texas at Dallas12. The University of Texas at Dallas (#4 Southwest)
The University of Texas at Dallas
UTD Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Richardson, TX
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 33
Tuition: $17,371 (in-state); $31,811 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The University of Texas at Dallas has:
- Offered experiential learning on launching startups, commercializing IP, and partnering with corporations. Our course with AT&T partners students with the managers who are determining 5G asset deployment. Our venture capital courses place students in firms for a semester, where they can conduct due diligence with the partners.
- Closely partnered with the local business community and ran joint programs.
- Hosted multiple events for students to meet and learn from prominent business leaders, such as Ross Perot Jr. at our annual business competition.
- Completed a third expansion of the UTD on-campus incubator to provide additional lab and office space.
- Worked with all students across campus, including the rapidly growing Bioengineering & Sciences program. One student spinout, CerSci Therapeutics, was acquired for what will be $900M (based on milestones), proving our academic and resource support model for any UTD grad student.
- Leveraged 5 different sites across campus to maximize UTD student engagement.
- Partnered with the City of Richardson on programs and events with the local community.
- Provided training and resources beyond the classroom, like funding and space, which enabled 4 student-formed companies to be acquired in the past 2 years totaling over $100 million.
- Led the Texas Blackstone LaunchPad Network for all UT System universities, sharing our best practices with others.
Courtesy of University of California-San Diego13. University of California-San Diego (#3 West)
University of California-San Diego
California Institute for Innovation and Development
La Jolla, CA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 26
Tuition: $52,699 (in-state); $59,490 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The Rady School's approach to entrepreneurship education has a unique focus: students collaborate in the classroom with corporate and community partners, research institutions, and academic units across the UC San Diego campus. Uniquely positioned in the heart of San Diego's life science industry, the school engages with the entire San Diego innovation ecosystem, which is flourishing in the life science, technology, and healthcare IT industries, to provide a comprehensive entrepreneurial experience for its students. While at the Rady School, students can participate in a variety of programs designed to enable collaborative opportunities. The school's StartR Accelerator program, which provides current students and alumni the opportunity to participate in focused hands-on company development, matches teams with mentors experienced in entrepreneurship and working with startups. Students can also participate in the StartR Inclusion program, which fosters entrepreneurship in underserved populations by matching teams with mentors and advisors. In addition, the student-run Rady Venture Fund pairs students with seasoned venture investors and provides real capital to startup companies.
Courtesy of DePaul University14. DePaul University (#3 Midwest)
Coleman Entrepreneurship Center
Chicago, IL
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 52
Tuition: $65,000 total program cost
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
DePaul has a long history of entrepreneurship education in the US, offering its first course in the subject in 1971. We now offer a combined bachelor's and master's degree in Entrepreneurship (4+1) and recently launched three entrepreneurship degrees: a BS major and two minors, one for business students and one for non-business students. The entrepreneurship program collaborates with DePaul's CDM College, one of the largest computer science schools in the nation, for joint programming-technology commercialization. Our 100-member Campus Advisory Team from across the university and our 60 CEC Mentors implement entrepreneurship education across all DePaul Colleges and also support our alumni. Student entrepreneurship organizations include CEO and NetImpact. The CEC's Internship Program pays DePaul students to work in new ventures and we had over 75 participants this year. Our Spring business plan competition, The Purpose Pitch, focuses on the cause behind forming a business and the strength of purpose beyond just making money. Over 40 student/alumni teams applied and the final 8 teams presented to over 100 people in person. DePaul and the CEC, along with IIT hosted the 2018 GCEC Conference in Chicago and is a leadership school member. DePaul also hosts University Pitch Madness each summer with 10 midwest universities competing.
Courtesy of University of Notre Dame15. University of Notre Dame (#4 Midwest)
The ESTEEM Graduate Program
South Bend, IN
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 56
Tuition: $58,880
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The ESTEEM Program, conceived in 2009 by the colleges of engineering, science and business (law was added in 2020), is a model of interdisciplinary collaboration. Students get their hands dirty through an experiential curriculum with outstanding out-of-the-classroom experiences.
The signature feature is the Capstone Project wherein students complete a real-world activity, typically an innovative product launch, with a company. Corporations that have sponsored Capstones include PwC, Deloitte, Whirlpool, Medtronic, GE, Lenovo, etc.
Sponsors pay a partnership fee, and all funds are pooled and then awarded to students as scholarships. This allows ESTEEM to admit high-caliber students from around the world and ensures a diverse student population.
From 2015 to 2022 there were 252 sponsored projects. Cumulatively $5.5 million was raised, and these funds were distributed to 351 students as financial aid (about $16,000 per student on average over the last eight years, but in 2022 the average scholarship was over $27,000). In this period tuition rose by 30%, yet the real cost of attendance (on average) increased only by 10%. In 2022, 10 percent of students were offered full-time jobs by their sponsors and over ⅔ of them accepted.
Providing an affordable program in which students solve real problems with real companies in a highly collaborative fashion with a diverse student body is the distinguishing characteristic of Notre Dame's graduate entrepreneurship education.
Courtesy of Saint Louis University16. Saint Louis University (#5 Midwest)
Chaifetz Center for Entrepreneurship
St. Louis, MO
Number of Entrepreneurship Course Offered: 97
Tuition: $52,475
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Keeping with our Jesuit roots ("Men and women for and with others"), we teach how to create social and non-profit ventures as well as for-profit ones. Those efforts, as well as helping others to do this as well, have landed us at #9 on The Princeton Review's 2022 Top 20 Schools for Making an Impact we teach how to create social and non-profit ventures as well as for-profit ones and to help others do this as well as how to pursue entrepreneurship for yourself. To make entrepreneurship education available to graduate students who might want this for their futures, we have grown it far beyond the business school, delivering the education and experiential training where they are academically based to prepare them for the entrepreneurial roles they will pursue in their professional careers. This means teaching students how to identify opportunities and launch startups not only in business but also in 18 departments. Our network of 75 faculty collaborate to connect students to an extensive set of on-campus resources (instructors, mentors, advisors, competitions, clinics, labs, centers, coworking spaces, shared-use kitchens, maker spaces, accelerators, etc.) as well as locally off-campus (in one of the top-10 startup cities in the USA—with all that implies) to help students achieve their goals and dreams. We connect students nationally through programs like our MedLaunch Medical Accelerator and our own nationally recognized Service Leadership Program to help them access opportunities everywhere.
Courtesy of University of Utah17. University of Utah (#4 West)
Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute
Salt Lake City, UT
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 26
Tuition: $31,500 (in-state); $31,500 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
First, we teach students how to experiment and pivot — not to focus on creating business plans. Second, we teach students the principles of a lean startup and the modern methods of fundraising such as crowdsourcing, because large amounts of capital are no longer required. Third, we believe students should learn by doing—including starting businesses while in college. Fourth, we believe successful entrepreneurship is a team activity requiring many types of people—not the product of a "lone genius."
The Master of Business Creation (MBC) program has specific learning objectives for students to use in their real-world startups such as executing fast-cycle–time-learning, navigating ambiguity, leading innovation, and mastering complex analysis and problem-solving. MBC students have a unique opportunity to get a credentialed degree for the time and work put towards their startups.
Our strengths include how we merge award-winning faculty, create a blended department, and give students a broader understanding of value creation and business formation. Our courses focus on helping students develop skills essential to success: market entry, competitive advantage, supply chain management, digital marketing, data analytics, and fundraising. We add these qualities to the resources available in our five-story Lassonde Studios building. The Lassonde for Life program aims to permanently provide graduates with workshops and support.
Courtesy of University of Maryland18. University of Maryland (#1 Mid-Atlantic)
Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
College Park, MD
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 22
Tuition: $45,499 (in-state); $54,409 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) is the highest strategic priority of the President of UMD. I&E at UMD is not limited to just the business and engineering schools. In fact, non-business and non-engineering students are every bit as important to include in the innovation process because that process isn't as rich and has inferior outcomes without that diversity. UMD aims to engage all 40,000 students in all 12 colleges and schools in I&E and is about 50% of the way there through extensive campus-wide collaboration. After adapting courses to be available online in 2020, UMD has made I&E significantly more accessible. Demand for certain I&E classes has grown tenfold now that more flexible, accessible, asynchronous options are available with which students can hone their entrepreneurial skills.
We view entrepreneurship as a way of thinking, doing and being that can be applied to most aspects of work and life. It is an exercise in self-expression, team building and problem-solving in order to create new value in the world. Entrepreneurship helps students build self-confidence and develop important personal skills in areas like creativity and leadership. Students learn concepts and methods like need-finding, opportunity recognition, value creation, design thinking, business modeling, and project planning and management. These can be applied to careers in industry, non-profits, and government alike.
Courtesy of University of Rochester19. University of Rochester (#4 Northeast)
University of Rochester Ain Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Rochester, NY
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 64
Tuition: $47,212
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Graduate students at the University of Rochester are encouraged to step outside their specialized areas of study to participate in a broader entrepreneurial ecosystem. The Eastman School of Music encourages its graduate students to think not only as musicians but also as creative entrepreneurs. The School of Nursing runs a one-of-a-kind Center for Nursing Entrepreneurship. The Warner School of Education is equally innovative, offering a distinctive Entrepreneurial Skills for Educators course, and the MS in TEAM program combines STEM with the curricula, serving as a model for new interdisciplinary entrepreneurship master's programs, both within and beyond the University of Rochester.
The vast majority of the entrepreneurship offerings—curricular and co-curricular—at UR are open to all graduate students, allowing individuals to meet other like-minded innovators and to share new perspectives frequently. Adaptability and familiarity with the different facets of entrepreneurship is the University of Rochester's strength, and these connections among disciplines are fundamental to UR's success.
Courtesy of Syracuse University20. Syracuse University (#5 Northeast)
Blackstone Launchpad powered by TechStars; Couri Hatchery; Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship
Syracuse, NY
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 32
Tuition: $46,324
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Entrepreneurship is an academic signature of Syracuse University. It is at the core of the programs at multiple schools on campus. This cross-campus commitment to entrepreneurship results in many student ventures starting and growing every year, thousands of students enrolled in entrepreneurship courses, many full-time faculty involved in programming, and dozens of community-based experiential opportunities for students. The Chancellor recently announced a $100M investment in scholarships, and entrepreneurship is central to that. We also recently launched a centralized incubator and resource center (Blackstone Launchpad) to provide additional help across campus. The coming years will also see a push for additional faculty.
We work with thousands of military veterans per year, helping to manage their transition to civilian life. We've worked with more than 120,000 military veteran entrepreneurs over the past few years and have been acknowledged for this at the highest levels of government and private industry. The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities has been in existence since 2007 and is now offered at 10 universities around the United States, inspiring similar programs in other countries.
Courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison21. University of Wisconsin-Madison (#6 Midwest)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship
Madison, WI
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 23
Tuition: $24,833 (in-state); $48,481 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Students taking our graduate entrepreneurship courses come from a variety of disciplines across the campus. This provides students with the experience of building and working on cross-disciplinary teams in an entrepreneurial environment. One of our longest-running courses, Weinert Applied Ventures for Entrepreneurship (WAVE), provides student entrepreneurs with the opportunity and $500 to test their ideas via customer/market discovery. The entrepreneurs then pitch their ideas to our advisory board of experienced entrepreneurs and investors. Successful teams receive a $50K investment from a fund tied to the course with the proceeds going to fund future student startups. Each summer we also hold a one-week, fifty-hour boot camp program for STEM graduate students. The Morgridge Entrepreneurial Bootcamp (MEB) alumni have launched numerous companies and raised over $500M in investor funding including a recent IPO. These opportunities teach the skills that allow our alumni to become successful entrepreneurs and leaders in their careers. In 2020, UW-Madison & American Family Insurance joined Creative Destruction Lab to launch the first site in the US to provide students with an opportunity to work on a team with premier startups in the risk industry from across the globe. Based on the early success we have also expanded the program to include a Health and Wellness track.
Courtesy of Erasmus University Rotterdam22. Erasmus University Rotterdam (#1 International)
Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship, Erasmus Enterprise, Yes!Delft Rotterdam (3 institutes)
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 37
Tuition: $58,276
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
We believe that our Strategic Entrepreneurship MSc program is built on three important elements: diversity, networking, and integration. We have a diverse faculty with their own take on entrepreneurship and different experiences, teaching a variety of topics with different methods (from case studies to out-of-the-building practice). We also have a great network of practitioners, entrepreneurs and investors, and incubators/accelerators. This diversity allows students to benefit from an array of experiences. Finally, we try to integrate such diversity at various levels for the student's sake.
Courtesy of Boston University23. Boston University (#6 Northeast)
Innovate@BU
Boston, MA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 27
Tuition: $56,412
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
For graduate students, BU offers a variety of classes across the campus. The strength of our education comes from the 18 colleges that make up BU. This allows us to embrace our belief that entrepreneurship applies to a wide variety of disciplines in a broad range of ways across our campus. Through this mission, we actively engage and intermix students from across the University in entrepreneurial classes and activities. Students can take classes in other colleges: for example, an engineering student can take a business class in order to help them launch their new venture. Classes such as the BU Law Clinic help enrich the BU entrepreneurial ecosystem by providing startup law services to other BU students. Our extensive co-curricular programs are focused on experiential learning and we also actively engage our alumnae in opportunities to share their wisdom and experiences with students, including special lectures, classroom appearances, and the mentoring of student entrepreneurs. This connection with alumni is particularly welcomed by graduate students. In addition, we engage our students in entrepreneurially oriented educational opportunities outside of the University such as a for-credit program that embeds students in companies inside the MassChallenge digital health accelerator.
Courtesy of Texas A&M University - College Station24. Texas A&M University - College Station (#5 Southwest)
Texas A&M University - College Station
McFerrin Center for Entrepreneurship
College Station, TX
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 29
Tuition: $42,879 (in-state); $62,805 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our approach to graduate entrepreneurship education is unique in that it focuses on real-world experiential opportunities. All of our programs are extracurricular so we minimize traditional instruction and rather use a flipped classroom to educate them on Lean Startup and other business principles. We then create an environment in which the students are exposed to different trends and opportunities in entrepreneurship and those with ideas can gather data to evaluate customer and market needs. Our environment encourages creativity, the exchange of ideas/talent, and multi/cross-disciplinary collaboration among the students. Peer feedback and leadership are also integral to our programs, and we leverage an extensive mentor network that enables students to seek feedback and learn from the experience of other entrepreneurs, business professionals, and entrepreneurial faculty and staff at Texas A&M. At our Center, students are encouraged to learn but are also provided with the ability to earn access to advanced programs and resources (including financial support) that can help them to launch their own companies. With this approach, we are able to focus resources that support the diverse needs of the entrepreneurial students on campus, ranging from those who want to use their skills to help others to those that are already running a business to those who wish to participate in other college- or topically-focused entrepreneurship programs.
Courtesy of North Carolina State University25. North Carolina State University (#2 South)
North Carolina State University
NC State Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Raleigh, NC
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 24
Tuition: $25,797 (in-state); $43,608 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization focus within the Jenkins MBA Program offers two unique paths: one focused on the commercialization of intellectual property, the other taking a more traditional approach to entrepreneurship. The commercialization focus, perhaps the most interdisciplinary arm of the MBA program, is about half MBA students and half Masters/Ph.D. students from other university programs. NC State University ranks in the top ten in terms of patent generation, yet most of those patents sit on the shelf. Students and faculty with a focus on commercialization are the arm that gets patents off the shelf and into new businesses. For those who choose the commercialization path, this applied, practical program ensures the production of new business startups is part of each student's educational experience. Students learn about technology opportunity analysis, building a pool of technologies from real IP, and finding ways to create ideas and explore potential high-growth business opportunities. NC State's entrepreneurship curriculum promotes critical thinking that allows students to develop and launch their own concepts or become valuable team members and leaders in new ventures or larger organizations. In addition, the graduate Biomedical Engineering program exists through a cross-university collaboration between UNC and NC State to enhance entrepreneurship opportunities for graduate students focused on new product development and innovation in medical devices.
Courtesy of Drexel University26. Drexel University (#2 Mid-Atlantic)
Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship
Philadelphia, PA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 45
Tuition: $63,994
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The Close School holds the distinction of being the nation's first dedicated, degree-granting school of entrepreneurship offering both graduate majors and minors in entrepreneurship. Today's fast-moving market, the "fourth industrial revolution," creates and reinstates the value in and demand for the initiative, innovation, and intellectual dexterity to reboot ways of working, thinking, and doing. Close has pioneered an approach to entrepreneurship education that addresses these skills and competencies by teaching students to be entrepreneurial thinkers and doers and preparing them to meet the global market on a solid, confident personal and professional footing. Students leave Close with an expansive view of what it means to be entrepreneurial beyond starting a company or sparking innovation within an established organization. Entrepreneurship comes to represent both a habit of mind and an attitude: it is the mindset and process that leads to pursuing innovation across diverse life contexts. At Close, we guide students in the cultivation of a life approach that leads to innovative thinking, calculated daring, and proactive behavior.
Close offers three uniquely positioned joint Master programs: Biomedicine and Entrepreneurship, Legal Studies in Law and Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation.
Courtesy of Loyola Marymount University27. Loyola Marymount University (#5 West)
Fred Kiesner Center for Entrepreneurship
Los Angeles, CA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 17
Tuition: $79,336 total program cost
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
At Loyola Marymount University, we value the following principles:
Commitment to Students: We care about each individual student and we care about the whole person— their mental and physical health, spiritual growth, and development as entrepreneurial leaders. We form a close family-like atmosphere between students, alumni, and faculty.
Commitment to our Mission: We are committed to instilling the entrepreneurial spirit in all our students By developing leaders with moral courage and creative confidence, we help them become the business leaders and role models of tomorrow.
Focus on Entrepreneurial Mindset: We are experts in strengthening our students' entrepreneurial mindset to help them become more proactive, innovative, and resilient in all aspects of their lives.
Real-life Experiences: Our students work with existing businesses—or build their own. Most of our instructors have extensive business/entrepreneurial backgrounds.
Startups and Beyond: Our students are able to apply entrepreneurial capacities in a variety of environments including startups, large organizations, and social enterprises.
Teamwork: At LMU, the students in our MBA programs, as well as our MS program in Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Innovation and MS program in Global Entrepreneurial Management, share experiences and collaborate in various classes and projects.
Courtesy of Temple University28. Temple University (#3 Mid-Atlantic)
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute
Philadelphia, PA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 40
Tuition: Varies by program
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Students who attend Temple University benefit from four core components of our curriculum:
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship: We see these as two sides of the same coin. TU's university-wide programming balances perspective shifts and an entrepreneurial mindset to recognize opportunities and develop differentiated, innovation-based, purpose-focused, value-creating business models with the practical skills and behaviors that help students fund and launch ventures or implement their vision in existing organizations.
- Integrated, Relevant, and Experiential: Our academic and cocurricular programs are strategically integrated and focus on experiential learning/launching. We say "Don't come to TU to learn about entrepreneurship — come to TU to launch your venture!" The best time to launch a venture is as a student since learning is enhanced by testing and applying ideas.
- Entrepreneurship Is Threaded into TU's DNA: We leverage general education courses (e.g., core CLA Intellectual Heritage courses teach creativity & social entrepreneurship, environmental science/tech classes take field trips to sustainable entrepreneurship ventures) and transform core curriculum in schools and colleges (e.g., 8 BFA degrees include entrepreneurship, engineering capstone courses include tech communications and Lean Startup, innovation/entrepreneurship concentrations are largest in the MBA).
- Entrepreneurship Academy: This novel approach to training faculty and funding/codeveloping new courses and programs is transforming TU. Thus far, it has created specialized programs in Freelancing, Urban Healthcare, Sports Innovation, Entrepreneurial Engineering, Social Entrepreneurship, Product Development, Licensing, Retail, and more.
Courtesy of Florida International University29. Florida International University (#3 South)
Florida International University
StartUP FIU, Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center, Small Business Development Center at FIU, and FIU CARTA Ratcliffe Art + Design Incubator
Miami, FL
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 53
Tuition: $34,000 (in-state); $39,000 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
FIU's approach to graduate entrepreneurship education is to recruit faculty with industry experience. The curriculum at the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts (CARTA) and the Chaplin School seeks to bridge the gap between creative talent and entrepreneurial success. Entrepreneurship education within academic art and design departments has been introduced into university curricula to prepare graduates to actively participate in the process of building their own companies. Lecturers and mentors are all entrepreneurs, whether they are an artist or have their own architectural firm, giving students valuable, tangible business insights. Like CARTA, the Chaplin School offers graduate courses that are taught by well-known industry leaders, and their classes feature visits from real estate developers, business owners, and management professionals from around the country.
Courtesy of University of Connecticut30. University of Connecticut (#7 Northeast)
Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Storrs, CT
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 31
Tuition: $17,186 (in-state); $39,098 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
We incorporate entrepreneurship into business, engineering, life sciences, law, and education curriculum and provide extensive opportunities for students to engage with existing entrepreneurs and develop innovative business ideas. In addition to entrepreneurially named courses, the importance of entrepreneurial thinking appears in several projects and strategy-related courses taken by all business students. Similarly, many engineering courses offer content and opportunities to support entrepreneurial endeavors. Hands-on practical experience is provided along with extracurricular programs that support startups for all UConn graduate and undergraduate students along the innovation and startup continuum. For example, a five-part mini-course, Innovation for Medical and Dental Clinical Professionals, guides graduate students at UConn Health toward entrepreneurial endeavors. The Partnership for Innovation & Education (PIE) program places students in bioscience labs for mentored summer research. Students and mentors participate in weekly seminars and workshops on innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology. At UConn we believe that innovation cuts across all disciplines—not just technology. Furthermore, developing one's innovative muscles also bolsters leadership and entrepreneurial skills. Each requires creativity, vision, and an honest examination of performance. Our many programs and course offerings help UConn develop tomorrow's leaders and entrepreneurs through instruction and practice.
Courtesy of Oklahoma State University31. Oklahoma State University (#6 Southwest)
Riata Center for Entrepreneurship, 36 Degrees North (Tulsa, OK), Institute for Global Social Entrepreneurship
Stillwater, OK
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 32
Tuition: $6,492 (in-state); $18,118 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our classes provide a blend of experiential activities and classroom instruction. The CIE Scholar class, for example, is based on the NSF I-Corps method of Customer Discovery. The students break into teams to vet the commercial potential of an OSU-owned technology by interviewing potential customers and others. This effort has reaped tangible rewards, including the launch of startups that have raised several rounds of funding. The breadth of the curriculum we offer is unique. Courses unique to our program include Launching a Business: The First 100 Days; Dilemmas and Debates in Entrepreneurship; CIE Scholar Practicum; and Ideation, Creativity, and Innovation. We offer an MBA concentration, a Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship, and a Ph.D. Our Ph.D. program is a signature program and our graduates have received excellent placements. The School of Entrepreneurship runs an NSF I-Corps site, which is rare for a department in a college of business. We maintain two student incubators, one in Stillwater (main campus) and the other in Tulsa. We offer an internship program and entrepreneurship-specific study abroad trips. Our student-led entrepreneurship club sponsors activities for both our graduate and undergraduate students.
Courtesy of University of Oregon32. University of Oregon (#6 West)
Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship
Eugene, OR
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 21
Tuition: $31,515 (in-state); $42,741 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The Oregon MBA approach to entrepreneurship is focused on maximizing student success with personalized support. Some students come to their MBA with an idea already developed and the motivation to launch. Others arrive with a general understanding of entrepreneurship and a desire to be a team member in a high-growth company. A third archetype is a student who knows they want to strike out on their own someday but feels like they need the tools of an MBA to maximize their chance of success.
A personalized MBA requires a strong network of support that includes faculty, mentors from the community, and alumni. We offer a 1:1 mentoring program for our students to connect with professionals. This program helps all our student find their own path into the workforce. Individual mentoring is augmented with advisory boards that support our Venture Launch courses. These boards simulate the startup process with experienced leaders who guide startup decisions. For students with an idea, passion, and the drive to launch, this provides a support system that integrates with the Oregon ecosystem. Throughout the program, all our students meet regularly with both their MBA Program Manager and a career advisor to identify the pathways forward that fit with their goals, life objectives, and skillsets. By focusing on each student, entrepreneurship education at Oregon is about more than just launching companies. Our goal is to see students thrive and engage in business as they follow their passions.
Courtesy of University of Minnesota33. University of Minnesota (#7 Midwest)
Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship
Minneapolis, MN
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 13
Tuition: $40,407 (in-state); $50,767 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our graduate entrepreneurship courses build upon students' prior experience to develop targeted skills and mindsets that support the exploration of their capabilities and interests. The resources and range of experiential opportunities are very unique. Our full-year Ventures Enterprise course places students on sponsored class projects working alongside leading corporations' mission-driven organizations to develop new markets and venture concepts. Our STARTUP courses provide funding and mentoring to test and develop new venture concepts. Our New Product Development course places students on cross-functional teams working with sponsoring companies. Throughout all of these courses, students work alongside leading entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators on applied projects.
As a National Science Foundation Innovation Corps site since 2014 (promoted to partner level in the new Great Lakes Region in 2021), we are leading the development of next-generation practices in teaching entrepreneurship to our students and researchers. This program has tested more than 400 new venture concepts while connecting with 2,000+ STEM innovators across campus. Research faculty, experienced industry mentors, and local alumni who are leading nationally prominent accelerators are working together to integrate both the latest academic research and practical experience into our classrooms.
Courtesy of Clemson University34. Clemson University (#4 South)
MBA in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Greenville, SC
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 22
Tuition: $20,302 (in-state); $33,040 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The Clemson University MBA in Entrepreneurship and Innovation program faculty work closely with students to help them first understand their means: who I am, what I know, and whom I know. Then, our successful entrepreneurial faculty work with these students to generate business ideas. Next, our faculty encourage the students to interact with the potential users, Clemson alumni, and the Greenville business community to gather stakeholder commitments and feedback on their nascent business ideas. Through these interactions and commitments, new means and new goals are created which ultimately lead to new and better products, markets, and business ventures. The results of this unique and distinctive approach are evident in the number of companies launched by our graduates.
Courtesy of University of Arkansas, Fayetteville35. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (#5 South)
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Fayetteville, AR
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 9
Tuition: $17,514 (in-state); $39,033 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our graduate programs are inherently interdisciplinary, which is one of our distinguishing features. Our longstanding Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship program, which has produced more than 50 ventures over the last decade and taught students who have placed first in dozens of international competitions, has been integrated into many degree programs across campus: the MBA program (2013), the M.S. Biomedical Engineering program (2020), the M.S. in Electrical Engineering program (2021), and the M.A. in Graphic Design program (2022). Discussions for curricular integration with Chemistry, Journalism, and Computer Science are underway.
In 2020 we also launched an NIH-funded program with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, which allows 4 to 6 postdoctoral researchers from UAMS to join the Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship cohort. The interdisciplinary teams they have joined through our program have produced medical devices, software, and diagnostics companies.
Engineering and business students also work together to develop innovations in the MSPI, Master of Science in Product Innovation, which has just launched for the 2022–23 academic year.
Courtesy of University of Louisville36. University of Louisville (#6 South)
Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship
Louisville, KY
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 17
Tuition: $32,000
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
We are dedicated to providing an immersive experience where all students are together in a cohort of aspiring entrepreneurs. We also hire Entrepreneurs-in-Residence from the community to mentor and coach our students.
Courtesy of The George Washington University37. The George Washington University (#4 Mid-Atlantic)
The George Washington University
Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence
Washington, DC, DC
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 10
Tuition: $52,826
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Entrepreneurship is a regular part of the curriculum and experience for GW students inside and outside the business school. Experiential learning is central to all courses. There's a breadth and depth of activities in which students can participate, including the New Venture and the Pitch George competitions, the former of which has the largest cash prizes in the country (nearly $500K awarded in 2022.). Student teams interact with a diversity of students, faculty, and mentors through on-campus resources and events such as the student-run entrepreneurship club, hackathons, lean start-up workshops, mentor-in-residence office hours, summer incubator, and government-sponsored STEM incubator programs such as the NSF i-Corps program (for which GW is a hub).
Courtesy of American University38. American University (#5 Mid-Atlantic)
American University Center for Innovation
Washington, DC
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 20
Tuition: $44,354
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The American University Center for Innovation (AUCI) is directed by three faculty members who all teach entrepreneurship in business and science programs. Our programming is thus multidisciplinary, and our outreach is to all undergraduates, graduates, and recent alumni. In graduate programming, we have invited online graduate teams from around the country, working in multiple disciplines, to participate in our incubator. This has expanded our scope to a national level and enriched our program with a range of new ventures, often run by working professionals. These student ventures are founded by candidates for advanced degrees in business, fine arts, communication, history, special needs education, and more. Students have access to every resource, including mentorship, competitions, workshops and 24x7 access to space when the founders visit Washington, DC. The hands-on approach and consistent support to ventures in the AUCI incubator program are the ultimate in experiential learning for students.
Courtesy of Wright State University39. Wright State University (#8 Midwest)
Wright State Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE)
Dayton, Ohio
Number of Entrepreneurship Course Offered: 3
Tuition: $15,374 (in-state); $25,362 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Wright State University's entrepreneurial master's program makes the most of experiential learning and real-world interactions with industry professionals and offers hands-on business planning for actionable new ventures. Some opportunities include:
• Developing business plans for local startups or students' own new venture ideas.
• Interacting, networking, and learning with and from local entrepreneurs.
• Collaborating with major local organizations in the Dayton "entrepreneurial ecosystem": e.g., Small Business Development Center, Air Force Research Labs (AFRL), and The Entrepreneurs Center (small business incubator).
• Competing in Wright Venture, Wright State's "shark tank" type of student competition.
Courtesy of Concordia University40. Concordia University (#2 International)
District 3 Innovation Centre The National Bank Initiative in Entrepreneurship and Family Business Centre for Women Entrepreneurship and Leadership Dobson Practicum Bob and Raye Briscoe Centre in Business Ownership Studies KPMG-JMSB Entrepreneurial Indi
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 13
Tuition: $4,181 (in-state); $8,231 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
With research centers like the National Bank Initiative in Entrepreneurship and Family Business, the Centre for Women Entrepreneurship and Leadership, the Bob and Raye Briscoe Centre in Business Ownership Studies, the KPMG Entrepreneurial Indices and the hands-on support from the Dobson Practicum and the District 3 Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the John Molson School of Business is the ideal place for students with an interest in entrepreneurship. Mentorship programs, entrepreneurs-in-residence, speakers' series, scholarships, and fellowships bring practical relevance to the academic excellence of our faculty. Experiential learning in the form of the Small Business Consulting Bureau, the Surgical Innovation course, or consulting for non-profit local ventures in the MBA Community Service Initiative are other features that are unique to the John Molson MBA program.
Courtesy of University of Florida41. University of Florida (#7 South)
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center
Gainesville, FL
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 23
Tuition: $13,737 (in-state); $31,130 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center was created to teach, coach, and inspire students to be entrepreneurial in all aspects of their lives. The Center provides students with the tools and experiences necessary to creatively pursue new opportunities and innovations in the startup, social, and corporate venture arenas. Through courses, degree programs, and complementary activities such as speakers and workshops, the Center currently serves more than 2,000 students per year.
Courtesy of Florida Atlantic University42. Florida Atlantic University (#8 South)
Adams Center for Entrepreneurship
Boca Raton, FL
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 12
Tuition: $6,693 (in-state); $17,921 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our distinctive approach to graduate entrepreneurship education consists of coursework and research at the MBA and Ph.D. levels. Our traditional Ph.D. program provides students who wish to pursue academic careers in entrepreneurship and finance a cadre of internationally recognized scholars. Our weekend executive Ph.D. program provides students working full-time with instruction on how to analyze business problems using evidence-based solutions; several of these students are currently writing dissertations in the entrepreneurship field. We support rigorous coursework through the Adams Center for Entrepreneurship, which provides potential graduate entrepreneurs with a boot camp, professional mentorship, an activity-filled Global Entrepreneurship Week, networking organizations, pitch competitions, and support for many external competitions. Our students and alumni grow their ventures through FAUs Accelerator (Tech Runway) and receive full operational support from FAU Research Park. In combination, these university-wide programs provide comprehensive support to all student entrepreneurs at FAU whether they are in business, engineering, computer science, Honors College, physical science, liberal arts, education, or other programs.
Courtesy of Gonzaga University43. Gonzaga University (#7 West)
American Indian Entrepreneurship
Spokane, WA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 4
Tuition: $36,000
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Gonzaga University has a one-of-a-kind entrepreneur MBA program for Native American individuals or non-natives working at tribal colleges and native-owned businesses. (The program is also open to Canadian First Nations members and native Alaskans and Hawaiians). The MBA in American Indian Entrepreneurship (MBA in AIE) is a two-year cohort model program designed to educate future business leaders to effectively manage and support sustainable business on American Indian reservations. Gonzaga offers generous scholarships for applicants to this unique and transformative program.
Gonzaga's MBA in American Indian Entrepreneurship (AIE) program, established in 2001, remains the only program of its kind in the nation. Attending students benefit from twenty years of refinement and success.
Courtesy of California State University San Bernadino44. California State University San Bernadino (#8 West)
California State University San Bernadino
Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE)
San Bernardino, CA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 22
Tuition: $36,000 total program cost
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Here are the key ways in which California State University—San Bernadino's programming stands out:
- "Think Like an Owner!": Our mantra helps students shift their focus to think differently and to cultivate this ownership mindset.
- Nontraditional approach: Courses are taught in a nontraditional fashion, encouraging students to adapt as entrepreneurs through the coursework as timelines shift, due dates change, and expectations are left wide open. We mimic the entrepreneurial experience of uncertainty, giving students an appreciation for what it takes.
- Teaching around specific competencies: Students are assessed on specific competencies upon entry to the program, at varying points in the program (in sync with specific projects that demonstrate the competency), and then again at the completion of the program. We monitor, track, and review their progress during the entire process.
- Complete ecosystem to support students: There's a fast-pitch competition, campus-wide innovation challenge event, angel-investor review sessions, campus-venture accelerator and a wide range of other programs/activities that provide experiential learning.
- Tech startup: We aim to have one student team in each cohort commercialize a project from one of our other courses. Currently, AxoTech is commercializing an innovation from the Naval Surface Warfare Center in the diagnostic technology space and is part of the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) Foundry program.
https://www.princetonreview.com/schools/1027811?ceid=entrepreneur-grad45. The University of Vermont (#8 Northeast)
Sustainable Innovation MBA
Burlington, VT
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 5
Tuition: $32,028 (in-state); $52,976 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Students of The University of Vermont's Sustainable Innovation MBA program benefit from:
- An accelerated one-year program: The goal is to get the student back out there, inventing or reinventing their enterprise as soon as possible.
- Vermont's unique spirit of entrepreneurship: Students learn from and develop relationships with leaders from a master class of sustainable, entrepreneurial enterprises, including Ben & Jerry's, Burton Snowboards, Keurig Green Mountain, and Seventh Generation.
- Global exposure and hands-on experience: Students can do meaningful, high-impact work with global partners that have on the ground accessn emerging markets and the developing world. For example, students in prior years have spent the summer practicum experiences working on sustainable innovation initiatives with companies like PepsiCo and Novelis in Latin American and Asian countries.
- Cutting-edge thinking and practice: Students interact with some of the leading thinkers and doers in the field of sustainable enterprise, both here in Vermont and from around the world through our Innovator-in-Residence Program.
- Multidisciplinary impact: We've designed a unique curriculum delivered by faculty from our School of Business along with colleagues from the Department of Community Development and Applied Economics, nationally ranked Rubenstein School of Natural Resources, Gund Institute for the Environment, and Vermont Law School.
Courtesy of Tulane University46. Tulane University (#9 South)
Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Phyllis M Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking, and Tulane Innovation Institute
New Orleans, LA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 12
Tuition: $57,708
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
The Freeman School offers both full-time and part-time programs to earn an MBA or specialized master's degree in business. Whether they are a full-time student or a business professional trying to balance their career and coursework, at Freeman, students find a master's degree program that will further their career goals and fit their personal needs. Tulane's full-time MBA degree offers classes that teach business fundamentals including finance, management, operations, accounting, statistics, and marketing. It includes a module that offers on-site international learning and hands-on business experience. In addition to developing a common body of knowledge in practical business, students have the option to choose a concentration/specialization, one of which is entrepreneurship.
New Orleans provides a compelling backdrop to this course of study. Students pursuing the entrepreneurship concentration can focus on early-stage venture creation (founding a company), second-stage growth (working with early-stage companies), and venture finance. Courses provide practical, applicable knowledge about strategy, management, and operations in fast-growing start-ups. Opportunities for independent study allow students to focus on a particular business segment or industry. Many students tap into the resources of the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to validate and launch their own startups.
Courtesy of Eastern Michigan University47. Eastern Michigan University (#9 Midwest)
Center for Entrepreneurship
Ypsilanti, MI
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 6
Tuition: $16,969 (in-state); $29,110 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our interdisciplinary and applied approach to graduate entrepreneurship also provides all the benefits of contemporary research in the field. We encourage students across the entire campus to take our graduate entrepreneurship courses, which, along with a variety of co-curricular programs, further fosters that culture in the EMU community.
Courtesy of University of Alabama at Birmingham48. University of Alabama at Birmingham (#10 South)
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Harbert Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Birmingham, AL
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 9
Tuition: Varies by program
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Aside from an unmatched outreach orientation, in which classes are essentially projects rooted in the ecosystem, we utilize a signature model of entrepreneurship education called the heptalogical model. The heptalogical model was published in the July 2019 issue of the international journal Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy and is utilized at other universities in addition to our own, nationally and internationally. It has also been used in entrepreneurship training programs on Coursera and Prometheus. Other schools in Alabama and in the Southeast do not have entrepreneurial ecosystems as we have at UAB, and it is a strategic advantage for our program.
Courtesy of State University of New York - Stony Brook University49. State University of New York - Stony Brook University (#9 Northeast)
State University of New York - Stony Brook University
Innovation Center, Center of Entrepreneurial Finance, and Small Business Development Center
Stony Brook, NY
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 4
Tuition: $29,000 (in-state); $30,300 (out-of-state)
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
Our approach is distinctive because of its focus on the team process, its immersion experience, and its connection with various industry stakeholders. Teams are central to two of our MBA courses: Teams and Leadership and Tech Innovation. MBA teams work as consultants for startups and family businesses in these courses as well as function in team exercises. All MBAs through these courses are immersed in entrepreneurship practice. Leveraging our vicinity to financial and manufacturing hubs at nearby regions and innovation ecosystems, such as Brookhaven National Laboratory, we are connected with industry partners across a number of areas. Such connections enable our graduate students to connect with industry experts and secure internship and project opportunities to gain insights and experiences from startups and mature companies.
Courtesy of University of San Diego50. University of San Diego (#9 West)
Entrepreneurship & Innovation Catalyzer (The CatalyZer), Center for Peace and Commerce, The Brink SBDC
San Diego, CA
Number of Entrepreneurship Courses Offered: 12
Tuition: $41,947
Companies Started by Graduates Over the Last 5 Years: 286
What Sets Us Apart
As a highly ranked professional business school in a private Catholic University that is designated as a Changemaker campus, our programming allows us to mold our students into ethical entrepreneurial leaders with a strong foundation in the core values of catholic social justice. Our graduate education focuses on keeping business for good front and center regardless of the products and services our students come up with. While students address a social innovation through the Global Social Innovation Challenge and related courses, we also provide opportunities for our students to create socially responsible and environmentally sustainable businesses even if they do not focus on a social or environmental problem—by producing products and services that maximize value for all stakeholders. At the USD School of Business, we also reiterate our university's Vision 2024 which includes pathways of access and inclusion, care for our common home, anchor institution, and practicing change-making. This positioning differentiates us from other competing regional schools and also positions us as one of the key players in entrepreneurship education in San Diego for creating ethical entrepreneurial leaders and our vision is to expand our outreach to all of Southern California.
