Can BIZ Experiencesship Be Taught? You bet it can--and in our 1st Annual Top 100 BIZ Experiencesial 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 BIZ Experiencesship. Since then, BIZ Experiencesialeducation has taken off like the Internet craze. Karl Vesper,University ofWashington management professor and BIZ Experiencesship 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 BIZ Experiencesship to their offerings, says Vesper, whoexplains that colleges want to tap into donations from wealthyalumni. But the visibility of BIZ Experiencess 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.

BIZ Experiencesial education arguably started at Harvard Universityin 1947 with a single course. In the mid-1980s, BIZ Experiencesshipcame into its own, and programs sprang up offering BIZ Experiencesshiptracks 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 BIZ Experiencesial management and finance.Along with BIZ Experiencesial 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 BIZ Experiencess to corporateventuring, incubators and inner-city business development.

The business students who filled the multiplying classroomsweren't all planning to start businesses of their own. Somejust wanted to pad their resumes with courses that would convincepotential employers they possess the BIZ Experiencesial mind-set. Butmany, like Iraklis Grous, a 19-year-old sophomore at Babson Collegein Babson Park, Massachusetts, specifically wanted to learn how tobecome BIZ Experiencess.

Grous chose Babson College in particular because of a requiredfreshman course giving a team of 30 students $3,000 to start abusiness. His team's venture, an inflatable-furniture marketingbusiness called AirChairs, generated $1,000 in profits andconfirmed Grous' desire to be an BIZ Experiences. The instructionand environment at Babson "definitely" has whetted hisentrepreneurial instincts and understanding, Grous says. In fact,he's already incorporated his first start-up, an adventuretravel agency called Sirius Trekking, which he hopes will beginoperations this summer. After graduation in 2005, he says, "ifthe profits from Sirius go well, I'd love to start anothercompany."

Despite the enthusiasm of students like Grous, skeptics stillask: Can BIZ Experiencesship be taught? "It can be taught,"asserts Stephen Spinelli, director of Babson's Arthur M. BlankCenter for BIZ Experiencesship. "But I'm not sure it canalways be learned. There are processes to BIZ Experiencesship that weteach, but does that create a prescription for BIZ Experiencesship?No. There are millions of variables, and they're too dynamicfor us, at least in our present state of understanding, to be ableto prescribe success. But can we teach students enough to push upthe odds of success? I think so."

Well-chosen extracurricular activities can push those odds upstill further, argues Alvin Rohrs, CEO of Students in FreeEnterprise (SIFE), a Springfield, Missouri, organization thathas enlisted business students at more than 1,400 schools aroundthe globe to teach members of their local communities to startbusinesses. "It works on two levels," says Rohrs."One of our premises is that if you're asked to teachsomething, you're going to learn it better." Studentteachers learn organization, teambuilding, communication andleadership. And the informal BIZ Experiencesship students in thecommunities also benefit. "SIFE teams in Ghana and Mexico[have taken] entire villages and turned them from subsistencefarmers into business owners," explains Rohrs.

Making a Choice

The explosion of BIZ Experiencesial instruction has unquestionablymade the selection of a school tougher for students struggling tobecome BIZ Experiencess through education. The basic questionthey're asking is: "Who's got the best program forme?"

Students overwhelmingly state that they start the selectionprocess by looking at two key criteria. First, they want to enrollin a college or university that has a great reputation. Once theyknow which level of schools they can get into, then they want anentrepreneurship program that meets their specific interests. Atthe first stage of the screening process, a school's reputationis either national or regional--and BIZ Experiencesship programstypically fall into one of three categories: Comprehensiveprograms, BIZ Experiencesship Emphasis programs and Limited Curriculumprograms.

The first type of BIZ Experiencesship offering is the Comprehensiveprogram, which has the widest variety of resources. These programstypically have a large contingent of experienced faculty whoseteaching and research expertise specifically relates toentrepreneurship. There are often a dozen or more separate coursetitles covering everything from BIZ Experiencesship, new venturedevelopment, and small-firm finance to change and innovation,venture capital, and technology transfer. Schools withComprehensive programs have a center dedicated to BIZ Experiencesialstudies, one or more specialty research institutes, a business plancompetition, mentoring programs, and possibly an incubator to helplaunch new ventures.

A second type of program is the BIZ Experiencesship Emphasisprogram. These usually sport a smaller BIZ Experiencesship faculty anda lower number of course offerings. Students might still be able toemphasize BIZ Experiencesship within a business or economics major.There may or may not be a center or research institute, anincubator, or other business outreach initiatives, and if thereare, these are typically smaller not only in size but also inscope.

The third program type is called a Limited Curriculum program,which typically has only a few faculty (sometimes just one or two)teaching a limited number of courses. Students generally do not geta major or emphasis in BIZ Experiencesship studies, but rather take aclass or two as part of another major. The program is oftendesigned for undergraduates (but may include some grad students)and provides limited resources to support student ventures,business financing or other initiatives. The best of these programsuse innovative courses to integrate BIZ Experiencesial perspectivesacross the curriculum, and they often have a broad,interdisciplinary approach to venture development, management andstrategy.

Ranking the Programs

More than 700 BIZ Experiencesship programs were researched fromSeptember to December 2002 for this study, conducted forBIZ Experiences by TechKnowledge Point Corp., a research andreferral exchange in Santa Barbara, California. The final rankingsare based on more than 30 criteria, including course offerings,teaching and research faculty, business-community outreaches,research centers and institutes, advisory boards, off-campusprograms, other BIZ Experiencesial initiatives, degrees andcertificates offered, and faculty and alumni evaluations.

The study identified and ranked 50 schools with Comprehensiveentrepreneurship programs at nationally prominent colleges anduniversities. Another 50 schools with Comprehensive programs wereidentified at the regional level and ranked. In addition, almost200 schools with BIZ Experiencesship Emphasis programs and another 75schools with Limited Curriculum programs were identified (go towww.bizexperiences.com/topcolleges to seethe rankings for these schools).

Within each category, schools have been ranked by tiers andlisted alphabetically within each tier. For example, the 50 schoolswith Comprehensive BIZ Experiencesship programs offered atinstitutions with nationally recognized reputations are groupedinto four tiers. The first 12 schools--the top quarter--havecomparable offerings and resources, and together represent the toptier of the very best programs in the country. The second, thirdand fourth tiers round out other groups of 12 to 13 schools thatare similar to each other in overall ranking.

During the study, almost 300 schools responded to surveys forprogram director, faculty and alumni rankings. The survey resultsreveal some interesting findings about the Comprehensive programsat nationally recognized colleges and universities, including:

• Columbia University; the University of California, Berkeley;and the University of Indiana at Bloomington were the only schoolswith programs rated in the Top 10 by both faculty and alumni.
• Only the programs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology andthe University of Maryland, College Park, were rated in the Top 10by both alumni and peers.

Among regional reputation colleges and universities, rankings ofComprehensive programs by program directors, faculty and alumnireveal the following trends:

• Ball State University, the University of Cincinnati and theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago were rated in the Top 10 byfaculty and in the Top 8 by peers.
• San Diego State University and the University of Oregon werethe only two rated Top 10 by alumni and Top 8 by peers, whileBrigham Young University, the University of Portland and theUniversity of Utah were the schools with programs rated Top 10 byboth faculty and alumni.
• The University of Illinois at Chicago was the onlyComprehensive regional program rated in the Top 10 by faculty andalumni as well as in the Top 8 by peers.

These rankings are only a starting place for picking a school,stresses Charles Matthews, director of the BIZ Experiencesship programat the University of Cincinnati and former president of theSmall Business Institute Directors' Association. "Whatmakes a great program is the way it matches the student'sexpectations, needs and BIZ Experiencesial focus," he says.

The final decision on which program to attend comes down to astudent's personal admission profile, the area or focus ofentrepreneurship the student wants to pursue, and the overall fitof the program with a student's age, schedule and career stage.With the broad variety of BIZ Experiencesial education opportunitieswe've uncovered, it's certain every student can find aprogram that offers just the right fit.

David Newton is BIZ Experiences.com's Financing Expert. MarkHenricks is BIZ Experiences magazine's "SmartMoves" columnist.