Mashable

15 Colleges With Powerhouse Entrepreneurship Programs

The nation’s top entrepreneurs don’t come from one place — not one Ivy, one city or one incubator. Sure, schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University have a reputation for churning out revolutionary ideas and battle-tested founders, but top-flight companies sprout from universities and entrepreneurship programs all across the country.

Case in point: Jan Koum. the co-founder of mobile messaging company WhatsApp. which recently sold to Facebook for $16 billion. isn’t an Ivy League MBA. Instead, he got his bachelor’s from San Jose State University.

To get a better feel for the college entrepreneurship landscape today, Mashable parsed through graduate and undergraduate rankings and syllabi to root out the top universities for entrepreneurship in the U.S.

The rankings we scoped judge schools on their faculty, course offerings, teaching principles and extracurriculars, and also on how many businesses they’ve helped launch and how many of those companies are still around.

The following schools are sorted alphabetically; their order does not reflect a ranking.

1. Babson College

A group of Babson students

Business school: Babson College (Babson only offers business programs)
Entrepreneurship center: Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship
Year center opened: 1999
Program: Undergraduate and graduate courses
Course sampling: “Raising Money — VC, Angels Incubators” (undergraduate) and “Enterprise 2.0: Building Social Networks” (graduate)
Notable alumni: Michael Bastian (founder, Michael Bastian ), Arthur Blank (co-founder, Home Depot ), Bob Davis (founder, Lycos Inc. ) and Alberto Perlman (co-founder, Zumba )

2. Brigham Young University

Dell Inc. CEO Kevin Rollins

Image: Contributor/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Business School: Marriott School of Management
Entrepreneurship center: Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship Technology
Year center opened: 2003
Program: Undergraduate and graduate courses
Course sampling: “Fundamentals of Intellectual Property” (undergraduate) and “Mobile Application Development” (undergraduate and graduate)
Notable alumni: Dave Bateman and Ben Zimmer (founders, Property Solutions International ) and Jonathan C. Coon (co-founder, 1-800 Contacts )

3. University of California, Berkeley

Indiegogo co-founders Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell

Business school: Haas School of Business
Entrepreneurship center: Lester Center for Entrepreneurship
Year center opened: 1991
Program: Undergraduate and graduate courses
Course sampling: “Opportunity Recognition: Technology and Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley” (graduate)
Notable alumni: Gordon Moore (co-founder, Intel ), Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell (founders, Indiegogo ), Marc Tarpenning (co-founder, Tesla Motors ) and Steve Wozniak (co-founder, Apple )

4. University of Chicago

GrubHub co-founder Matt Maloney

Image: Contributor/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Kenan-Flagler students work in the business school’s Capital Markets Lab

Image: University of North Carolina

Business school: Kenan-Flagler Business School
Entrepreneurship center: Kenan-Flagler Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
Year center opened: 1998
Program: Graduate and undergraduate
Course sampling: “Designing and Protecting Your Startup” (graduate) and “Social Entrepreneurship Through Microfinance” (undergraduate)
Notable alumni: Ryan Allis (co-founder, iContact ) and Jason Kilar (founder, Hulu )

10. University of Pennsylvania

Warby Parker co-founders David Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal

Image: Warby Parker

Business school: Wharton School
Entrepreneurship center: Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center
Year center opened: 1973 (named for Snider in 1985)
Program: Graduate and undergraduate
Course sampling: “Building Human Assets in Entrepreneurial Ventures” (graduate) and “Entrepreneurial Marketing” (undergraduate)
Notable alumni: Neil Blumenthal, David Gilboa, Andrew Hunt, Jeffrey Raider (founders, Warby Parker ), Leonard Bosack (co-founder, Cisco Systems ), Josh Kopelman (founder, Half.com ), Cyrus Massoumi (founder, ZocDoc ) and Elon Musk (co-founder, PayPal and co-founder, Tesla Motors )

11. Princeton University

Vikram Pansare, who founded Sphera Materials, presents at the Keller Center Innovation Forum.

Image: Princeton University

Business school: Princeton does not have a business school, but it has entrepreneurship programs
Entrepreneurship center: The Keller Center
Year centered opened: 2005
Program: Undergraduate courses
Course sampling: “Special Topics in Entrepreneurship: Developing Commercially Viable Technologies”
Notable alumni: Jeff Bezos (founder, Amazon ) and Frank Moss (co-founder, Bluefin Labs )

12. University of Southern California

A Pinkberry store in Dubai. Pinkberry was founded by USC alum Shelly Hwang

Business school: Marshall School of Business
Entrepreneurship center: Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
Year center opened: 1971
Program: Undergraduate and graduate courses
Course sampling: “The Digital Startup Launchpad” (undergraduate) and “Investing in New Ventures” (graduate)
Notable alumni: Marc Benioff (founder, Salesforce.com ), Scott Cook (co-founder, Intuit ), Shelly Hwang (co-founder, Pinkberry ), Paul Orfalea (founder, Kinko’s ) and Andrew Viterbi (co-founder, Qualcomm )

13. Stanford University

Google co-founder Sergey Brin

Image: James Duncan Davidson/O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Business school: Stanford Graduate School of Business
Entrepreneurship center: Stanford Graduate School of Business Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
Year center opened: 1996
Program: Undergraduate and graduate courses
Course sampling: “The Spirit of Entrepreneurship” (undergraduate) and “Entrepreneur Leader-Identity Development: A Critical-Incident Approach” (graduate)
Notable alumni: Brian Acton (co-founder, WhatsApp ), Rich Barton (founder, Expedia.com and founder, Zillow.com ), Sergey Brin (co-founder, Google ), Joe Coulombe (founder, Trader Joe’s ), Reed Hastings (founder, Netflix ), Reid Hoffman (founder, LinkedIn ), William Hewlett and David Packard (founders, Hewlett Packard ), Jawed Karim (co-founder, YouTube ), Kevin Systrom (co-founder, Instagram ) and Tim Westergren (co-founder, Pandora )

14. University of Texas, Austin

Tito’s Vodka, founded by UT alum Burt Butler Beveridge II

Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services

Dubuque man thanks donors for help in purchasing specialized vehicle

A Dubuque man with no arms and legs is now able to drive with a modified vehicle made just for him.

Jake Hesselman’s cousin and aunt started a Go Fund Me account for him last summer, asking people to donate money for a specialized vehicle that he could drive.

The page raised $65,000, which went toward buying the vehicle.

The Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation agency helped pay for the modifications.

The car is specially equipped with a ramp to help Hesselman get in and out.

Progressive Alliance on KHOI Community Radio

Tune in to hear Andrea Keith, IVRS Rehabilitation Counselor at our North Central Area Office, discuss disability issues on KHOI Community Radio in a recording of last Friday’s segment.

The Ames Progressive Alliance produces this monthly program.Victoria Szopinski, Co-Chair of the Ames Progressive Alliance co-hosts the show with Anne Kinzel. Also featured in this program are Jan Bauer, Chair of the Story County Democrats, who was born physically disabled and Jennifer Ellis, Executive Director of Friendship Ark Homes, to address barriers to individuals with intellectual disablities.

The program lasts approximately 25 minutes.

Project Search Featured on the front page of the Quad City Times!

In case you missed it please click the links below!

People with Disabilities Twice as Likely to be Employed in Some States as Others

Wyoming leads nation with 57.1 percent of their working-age citizens with disabilities employed.
Pennsylvanians with disabilities experience the biggest jobs gains of any state in the nation with 13,763 more people with disabilities entering the workforce.
Wisconsin edges Nevada out of the top 10 states after investing in school-to-work transition programs for youth with disabilities.

Read the full article

Winners Announced for Iowa Job Honor Awards
New initiative aims toemploy disadvantaged jobseekers by celebrating A New Kind of Hero

Iowa Job Honor Awards Honorees

The Iowa Job Honor Awards, an initiative aimed at recognizing Iowans who have overcome barriers to employment, has announced its top honorees for 2016.

In the employer category, Owner Revolution in Atlantic and The ReWall Company of Des Moines were honored for their commitment to hire disadvantaged candidates, including people with developmental disabilities, past criminal convictions and histories of addiction. Heather Link, human resources manager at Owner Revolution, believes that people who overcome barriers often make exceptional employees. They value this opportunity so much. They re doing something that matters, and they re valued. And to me, that s success. Jan Rayman, CEO at ReWall, agrees: We ve struggled to find people who would do a good job and show up every day, so we quickly arrived at the conclusion that it s not about their background, it s about their present and future. We want to be the company offering second chances.

Pictured are: Kyle Horn, Founder Director of America s Job Honor Awards; Heather Link and Lorene Grubbs of Owner Revolution in Atlantic; John Worth, V.P. and General Manager at Owner Revolution Inc. and Michelle Krefft, Business Consultant at Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services.