Brigham Young University’s undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship programs stayed strong at No. 2 and No. 7, respectively, in The Princeton Review’s annual ranking for Entrepreneur magazine.
The rankings are identical to those earned last year and continue to highlight the abilities of BYU students, faculty and staff in promoting entrepreneurship across campus.
“Brigham Young University student entrepreneurs continue to demonstrate they are among the best and the brightest in the country," says Lee Perry, BYU Marriott School dean. "We are grateful to the army of supporters of the BYU Marriott School’s undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship programs. We are especially grateful to our Founders and Associate Founders organizations for the incredible mentoring they provide to our students. We also congratulate the Rollins Center’s administrators and staff and our entrepreneurship faculty, and express gratitude for all the work they do on behalf of our students.”
Over the last five years, BYU undergraduate and graduate students have combined to start 422 companies and have collectively raised $719 million in funding. Nearly 1 in 6 of the university's 33,000 students takes at least one course in innovation or entrepreneurship. Ninety-three percent of the entrepreneurship faculty has started, bought or run a successful business, and 162 individual mentors worked with students through an officially sponsored school program.
“The spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship is rampant across the BYU campus," says Steven Fox, Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology managing director. "We are delighted to help students extend their vision of what is possible in their lives.”
The Rollins Center provides students interested in entrepreneurship the opportunity for mentored experiences in competitions and workshops both on- and off-campus. BYU annually hosts the International Business Model Competition, the first and largest business model competition in the world, in addition to the Miller Competition Series. Taking what they’ve learned from the Rollins Center with them, BYU students were recently presented the grand prize at the Rice Business Plan Competition and Utah Entrepreneur Challenge, among others.
The Princeton Review evaluates schools based on a wide range of institutional data, including each school’s level of commitment to entrepreneurship inside and outside the classroom; the percentage of faculty, students and alumni actively and successfully involved in entrepreneurial endeavors; the number of mentorship programs available to students; and the amount of funding for scholarships and grants awarded for entrepreneurial studies and projects.
The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, entrepreneurship, finance, information systems and public management. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,300 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.
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Writer: Jordan Christiansen