Can Schools Teach Entrepreneurship?
[Yes, and these schools do…]
The Entrepreneurial Educational Landscape:
1947 First MBA entrepreneurship course offered at Harvard.
1953 Entrepreneurship and Innovation offered at New York University
1954 Small Business Management, first MBA small business course offered at Stanford.
1967 First contemporary MBA entrepreneurship courses introduced at Stanford & New York Universities.
1970 First entrepreneurship center, the Caruth Institute of Owner-Managed Business, established at Southern Methodist University.
1975: 104 colleges/universities have entrepreneur courses in 1975.
1986: nearly 600 undergraduate schools had courses in entrepreneurship.
1990s: 2/3s of high school students wanted to become entrepreneurs.
By 2013: more than 5,000 courses in entrepreneurship offered at 2,600 schools.
Why Entrepreneurial Startups are Important:
23 million: number of small businesses in America.
55: percentage of all jobs created by small businesses
The number of small businesses in the United States has increased 49% since 1982.
As of March 2011, there are an average of 320 new businesses launched every month, for every 100,000 U.S. adults. That’s 543,000 new U.S. companies every month.
Nearly 30 percent of new business startups by people age 20-34.
39.8 percent of the nation’s current 11.5 million entrepreneurs belong to non-Caucasian ethnicities. 22.9 percent are Latino.
Entrepreneurial companies (fast growth companies under 5 years old) have added 40 million jobs to the U.S. economy over the past 30 years.
Entrepreneurial Demographics, Do YOU fit the profile?
Still think you have it in you to be an entrepreneur? Here are some facts:
1. The average and median age of company founders when they started their current companies is 40.
2. 95.1 percent earn bachelor’s degrees, and 47 percent have more advanced degrees.
3. Less than 1 percent come from extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds
4. Majority of the entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs.The average number of businesses launched by respondents was approximately 2.3.
5. Entrepreneurs are usually better educated than their parents.
Top 5 Colleges Offering Online MBA degrees in Entrepreneurship
• Oklahoma State University: The School of Entrepreneurship’s Riata Center for Entrepreneurship.
• University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.: The University of Florida’s Warrington College of 3. Business Administration in the Hough Graduate School of Business.
• Washington State University: WSU College of Business.
• Southern New Hampshire. All courses, including International MBA program, offered online
• Drexel University, Philadelphia. LeBow College of Business.
Top 5 colleges, Undergraduate Offering Degrees in Entrepreneurship [online and at school combined]
1. Babson College, Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson, Mass.
Tuition: $43,520
2012-13 Enrollment: 2,015
Year Major First Offered: 1999
Percentage faculty who are entrepreneurs: 100%
Scholarships for entrepreneurship students: Yes
Scholarships money available: $30,000,000
Recent grads who started a business: 11%
Percentage still in business: 90%
Mentorship programs: 4
2. University of Houston, Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, Houston, Texas
Tuition: $19,848
In-state tuition: $9,318
2012-13 Enrollment: 1,921
Year Major First Offered: 1995
Percentage faculty who are entrepreneurs: 100%
Scholarships for entrepreneurship students: Yes
Scholarships money available: $95,000
Recent grads who started a business: 41%
Percentage still in business: 100%
Mentorship programs: 9
3. University of Southern California, Lloyd Grief Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Los Angeles, Ca.
Tuition: $45,602
2012-13 Enrollment: 1,449
Year Major First Offered: 1971
Percentage faculty who are entrepreneurs: 94%
Scholarships for entrepreneurship students: Yes
Scholarships money available: $17,000
Recent grads who started a business: 50%
Percentage still in business: 100%
Number of entrepreneurship organizations and clubs: 5
Mentorship programs: 6
Annual amount awarded in business plan competitions: Yes; $239,000
4. Syracuse University, Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises, Syracuse, N.Y.
Tuition: $38,970
2013 Enrollment: 6,715
Year major first offered: 1996
Percentage of faculty who are entrepreneurs: 100 %
Scholarships for entrepreneurship students: Yes
Scholarship money available: $2.3 million
Recent grads who started a business: 12%
Percentage still in business: 100%
Mentorship programs: 6
5. Baylor University, Baylor Entrepreneurship Program, Waco, Tx.
Tuition: $32,574
2012-13 Enrollment: 330
Year Major First Offered: 1977
Percentage faculty who are entrepreneurs: 100%
Scholarships for entrepreneurship students: Yes
Scholarships money available: $3,340,000
Recent grads who started a business: 67%
Percentage still in business: 75%
Mentorship programs: 12
BUT….Can you teach entrepreneurship? [The jury is out]
Yes: You can teach certain skills that will help start up a business. You can be taught:
• Basic business skills
• Finance
• Hiring
• Marketing
No: You can’t teach:
• Internal motivation
• Drive
• Curiosity
• Resilience
The Great 8 Entrepreneurs
• George Washington, in the late 1700s: built a mill that ground 278,000 pounds of branded flour annually that was shipped throughout America; built one of the new nation’s largest whiskey distilleries.
• Benjamin Franklin. A printer, an inventor (the lightning rod, bifocals) and a savvy businessman.
• P.T. Barnum. He created the Barnum and Bailey Circus, “the Greatest Show on Earth.”
• Thomas Edison. He gave the world the electric light, the phonograph, talking motion pictures and more than 1,300 other patented inventions.
• Henry Ford. Changed human lifestyles by making available a vehicle, the Model T. Designed the first moving assembly line.
• Benjamin Siegel. Known as “Bugsy” to his friends, Siegel single-handedly invented Las Vegas, legends say.
• Ray Kroc. McDonald’s. Fast food. Nuff said.
• Jobs & Wozniak. Apple Computer’s two Steves. Also, nuff said.
Most successful Entrepreneurs who went to college (But they didn’t all graduate)
• MarK Zuckerberg, Harvard. Facebook.
• Bill Gates, Harvard, Microsoft
• Michael Dell, U. of Texas, Dell Computers
• Jerry Yang and David Filo, both went to Tulane, Yahoo
• Larry Page and Sergey Brinn, Stanford, Google
• Steve Wozniak, U. of California, Berkeley, Apple
Sources:
http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
http://www.good.is/posts/can-schools-teach-entrepreneurship
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5519861/ns/business-small_business/t/historys-greatest-entrepreneurs/#.UvRtgIWZ3ow
http://www.sba.gov/content/small-business-trends
http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2012/07/22/whos-starting-americas-new-businesses-and-why/
http://www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges/undergrad/0.html
http://www.filentrep.com/entrepreneurship/8-entrepreneurial-lessons.htm
http://www.thebestschools.org/blog/2013/08/30/20-online-programs-mba-entrepreneurship/
