University-wide trends in entrepreneurship education and the rankings: a dilemma.
Streeter, Deborah H. ; Kher, Romi ; Jaquette, John P., Jr. 等
INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship education, a relatively new area for many
universities and colleges, has been drawn into the rankings game over
the past decade. Major business media outlets such as US News &
World Report, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur Media and Fortune Magazine now
publish annual rankings of entrepreneurship efforts in universities and
colleges. While this may have brought more visibility to
entrepreneurship education, it remains to be seen whether these new
rankings are good news or bad news. Rankings of academic programs,
especially those related to business education, have been controversial.
At the university level, U.S. News & World Report rankings have
been publicly criticized by college presidents (Chronicle of Higher
Education, 2008). Business school and other academic rankings have been
called "deeply flawed" (Karey, 2006) and "noisy and
one-sided signals" (Dichev, 1999). Goia and Corley (2002) argue
that the influence of rankings is accelerating the transformation of
business schools "from substance to image." Although these
studies focus primarily on rankings of MBA programs, many of the lessons
and insights they raise can be extended to an examination of the ranking
of entrepreneurship programs.
Despite the objections raised by various authors who have studied
rankings and their impact, there is a strong motivation for media
companies to continue to publish their rankings because it helps sell
their products, and in a world with an overwhelming amount of
information about schools and colleges, prospective students and their
parents are likely to continue using rankings as a means of filtering
and sorting through all the data. The Chronicle of Higher Education
recently included an appropriate comment by Jeffrey Brenzel, Yale's
dean of undergraduate admissions: "Rankings use a rigid formula,
which can be highly misleading, but they currently fill a vacuum."
In this paper, an argument is made that current ranking systems are
not providing an accurate picture of entrepreneurship programs to their
readers because the ranking metrics ignore the nationwide trend toward
entrepreneurship education becoming university-wide, featuring
cross-disciplinary programs with diverse missions at each institution,
rather than existing simply as a subspecialty in business or engineering
programs. The failure to capture university-wide dimensions creates at
least two problems with the rankings: 1) accuracy of information,
because of the difficulty of designating a single information source
where there exists a complex set of programs and 2) inappropriate
weighting of venture creation, which is less likely to be the primary
focus for entrepreneurship programs that are university-wide. Given the
issues with the rankings, it is recommended the field of
entrepreneurship come up with a better information system (not a ranking
system) for potential students and others who want to explore
entrepreneurial offerings at universities. It is argued that such a
system could and should be created to be 1) more substantive and
informative, 2) centralized and 3) technologically appropriate, taking
advantage of wiki technologies and the current user-generated
possibilities offered by Web 2.0.
PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON RANKINGS
The bulk of the research related to rankings has focused on ranking
Business Schools. Some studies have shown that a large portion of the
changes in the rankings reverse in a predictable way, due to noise in
the information used to produce the rankings and the fact that various
ranking systems are not correlated, suggesting that they are based on
different information (Dichev, 1999). Morgeson and Nahrgang focused on
the BusinessWeek rankings, showing that the rankings are highly stable
over time and that some of the best predictors of rankings are elements
that cannot be changed.
Another criticism of the rankings is that they have created
incentives for MBA programs to shift resources away from things that
give substance to their programs in order to favor those elements that
relate to image (Gioia and Corley, 2002). Others have focused on the
idea that the media rankings exaggerate the differences between similar
MBA programs (Policano, 2007). Despite these potential flaws, it has
been shown that rankings do significantly impact consumer perception. An
interesting recent paper (Zemsky, 2008) discusses both the pros and cons
of ranking systems and argues that the media should not focus on a
statistical measure of market position, but rather create a system that
would be an accurate measure of customer satisfaction; however, the
author admits it would be very difficult to sample nearly a million
potential respondents at 1800 institutions in order to create such a
consumer satisfaction index.
No study has been done specifically about the ranking of
entrepreneurship programs, most of which had their origins in the early
1990s. Vesper and Gartner (1997) published their own rankings of
programs, focusing on the following criteria: courses offered, faculty
publications, impact on community, alumni exploits, innovations, alumni
start-ups, and outreach to scholars. At that time, they stated, "We
must not lose sight of the fact that entrepreneurship programs are and
will be evaluated, and that we must, therefore, be ready to offer
criteria that we want our programs to be evaluated on. If university
entrepreneurship educators do not step forward to assume leadership of
our own field, others will surely come to the forefront to determine the
rules of the game." Unfortunately, no consistent effort emerged by
educators to do the rankings, and by 2005 rankings by the media began to
appear; however, no systematic study has emerged to analyze whether
those rankings are effective in measuring and communicating excellence
in entrepreneurship education.
METHODS
To analyze the entrepreneurial rankings since 2005, four specific
systems were analyzed: those published by Entrepreneur Media, U.S. News
& World Report, Fortune Small Business and BusinessWeek. The goals
of each ranking system were studied along with the criteria used to rank
schools. In particular, rankings were compared across the four systems,
focusing on the most current data from each system that was available to
prospective students in the fall of 2008.
In addition to studying the rankings, the authors sought to have a
broader understanding of the pool of universities from which the
rankings have been determined. Using a list of 160 schools, the authors
examined how many entrepreneurship programs have faculty, courses,
and/or resources outside engineering and/or business programs in order
to document the continuing trend toward university-wide entrepreneurship
education. 120 of the programs on the list came from Entrepreneur
magazine (the publication only actually ranks the top ten) from their
2006 rankings and listings of all programs. The magazine listed programs
for undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees and by region using a set of
criteria developed by them and summarized in table #1. The other 40
programs came from merging rankings by the other magazines to this list
of 140 programs. Essentially, if Entrepreneur magazine did not review a
college in 2006, it was added to the list. In addition, research was
done to gauge the importance each program places on business creation in
their measures of success. These broader results were useful in showing
how the rankings systems may be outdated in the way they view programs.
CHALLENGES IN STUDYING ENTREPRENEURSHIP RANKINGS
A trend over the last decade is that increasing numbers of media
companies are creating entrepreneurship rankings. The stated purpose of
each of these ranking systems is to inform prospective
students/consumers about where they can find (and apply to) the
"best programs." U.S. News has been doing college rankings
since 1983 but only added entrepreneurship rankings over the past few
years. Their rankings are intended to provide "reliable and
consistent data--information that lets you compare one college with
another."
In the case of Entrepreneur.com, rankings are intended to provide
consumers with "an unbiased and uncensored view of the chosen
colleges." BusinessWeek has been ranking MBA programs since 1988
and started ranking entrepreneurship programs in 2005. Finally, Fortune
Small Business started ranking schools in 2007, breaking programs down
into separate categories, including general entrepreneurship, family
business and social entrepreneurship. Each media outlet has its own
method for ranking, which yields very different results (see Table 1).
Lack of Consistency and Changes in Metrics
Data issues confound evaluation of the four ranking systems for
entrepreneurship. Most methods used to study other rankings, such as
those focused on MBA programs, use longitudinal data. The ranking
systems they study use the same algorithms and methods to rank schools
from year to year so it is possible to monitor how schools'
rankings vary over time. For example, Dichev used first order
autocorrelation as a proxy for predictability and found the MBA rankings
have "a strong tendency to revert ... essentially simple
aggregations of 'noisy' information." He was also able to
compare across ranking systems, finding that over time there was no
correlation between the contemporaneous changes of Business Week and
U.S. News rankings. It is impossible to do a similar longitudinal study
for entrepreneurship rankings because of the many changes in ranking
entities and methodologies used across time.
As shown in Table 1, the various entrepreneurship rankings are
different in terms of frequency, methods of gathering data, style for
displaying results and the mix of how they use quantitative and
qualitative factors. For example, BusinessWeek ranks programs every
other year, while other media outlets issue rankings on an annual basis.
Within a Single System--Changes in Methodology from Year to Year
Another data issue is that methods for ranking entrepreneurship
programs have changed over time, even within a single source. Tables 2
and 3 illustrate the rankings done by Entrepreneurship Magazine (now
Entrepreneurship Media) from 2005-2007. Prior to 2006 Entrepreneur
created three tiers of schools, listing schools alphabetically within
each tier. In 2006 they went to a numerical ranking system. In addition,
the pre-2006 data collection and rankings were done for Entrepreneur by
a firm called TechKnowledge Point Corp. In 2006, Entrepreneur partnered
instead with Princeton Review to rank schools, employing a different set
of metrics and weights and separating graduate and undergraduate
rankings for the first time.
Changes in the metrics used across the four years of rankings by
Entrepreneur resulted in changes in the relative position of schools.
Comparing the rankings of schools in 2005-06 versus 2007-08, it is clear
that a major change has occurred in the way programs were evaluated. The
top 10 schools in 2007-08 do not have a single overlap with the schools
ranked highly in previous years. The inconsistencies within this one
ranking system rule out using methodologies that have been applied by
researchers to MBA programs.
Inconsistent Rankings across Programs
Considering the methodology of each ranking system (see Table 1),
it should not be surprising that comparing results across programs
reveals conflicting information for the consumer. Entrepreneur relies on
surveys, while Fortune bases its rankings on journalistic-style
reporting. While the methodology used by U.S. News is not explicit,
their website says that the overall ranking of universities is based on
a weighted average of various factors, so one can infer a similar system
to their ranking of entrepreneurship programs.
Thus, in addition to within-system variation, there is considerable
variation across systems. Table 4 is a display of the most recent data
obtained from each of the top 10 schools (2008 for Entrepreneur
Magazine, 2009 for U.S. News & World, 2006 for BusinessWeek and 2007
for Fortune). The decision to mix various years was made because the
selected rankings represent the information available to prospective
students in the fall of2008, for both undergraduate and graduate
programs.
A blank cell means that the school was not ranked in the top 10 by
that entity. An asterisk is used to designate the rankings of
BusinessWeek and Fortune Magazine, who only list the top schools
alphabetically, without assigning a specific numerical ordering. An
examination of the table shows the many inconsistencies. Consider the
following conflicting outcomes:
* Babson is the only program that is ranked in the top 10 by all
entities across all programs.
* Comparing the undergraduate list for Entrepreneur and
BusinessWeek, there is only one school (Babson) in their top five that
is common across the two sources.
* Comparing the graduate list for Entrepreneur and BusinessWeek,
except for Babson, the top 10 schools have no overlap.
* Some programs rank only in one of the systems (Harvard and
University of Houston, for example).
The inconsistency in the rankings is concerning, given the very
similarly stated purposes of the media outlets for publishing such data.
Here are examples from their websites:
* BusinessWeek promises "the scoop on the best schools."
* US News & World tells people they "need a source of
reliable and consistent data" to find the right college.
* Entrepreneur states they "give you an unbiased and
uncensored view of the chosen colleges."
* Fortune provides rankings "to guide you through the academic
maze."
While the four sources may share a common goal of informing the
public's decision-making regarding schools, the results are very
confusing. In addition, there is a deeper issue regarding the accuracy
of the rankings when it comes to entrepreneurship. The metrics they are
using are not capturing what could be argued as the most important trend
in entrepreneurship: the move of entrepreneurship education across the
curriculum to university-wide approaches.
UNIVERSITY-WIDE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Entrepreneurship courses and activities are found in about
two-thirds of the 2,000 college campuses across the U.S. according to
the Kauffman Foundation website. Most programs started in either the
graduate or undergraduate business programs, or occasionally out of an
engineering program focused on technology innovation; however, slowly
but surely, entrepreneurship education has spread across campuses
everywhere. Streeter and Jaquette (2002) documented the shift toward
various models of university-wide entrepreneurship, showing that nearly
three-quarters of the schools surveyed had moved entrepreneurship
education across the curriculum, beyond the business and engineering
programs.
Since then, some of the major funding entities, such as the
Kauffman Foundation and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators
Alliance (NCIIA), have further encouraged university-wide approaches to
growing entrepreneurship programs on college campuses. Now in its third
round of creating what are called the "Kauffman Campuses," the
Kauffmann Foundation has funded more than a dozen institutions to the
tune of $4-5M each to infuse their entire university or college with
entrepreneurial activities, courses, and approaches. The driving force
behind such programs is the belief that entrepreneurship belongs not
just in colleges of business and/or engineering, but also in programs
focused on such diverse fields as theater, veterinary medicine, computer
science, law, nursing, biology, sociology, and sports medicine.
Streeter and Jaquette (2002) studied 38 entrepreneurship programs
and found that 28 had university-wide entrepreneurship. In this study,
160 entrepreneurship programs were studied (see list in Appendix 1) and
found entrepreneurship programs were located in various places:
* Undergraduate business programs (86%)
* MBA programs (73%)
* Undergraduate engineering program (47%)
* Graduate engineering program (30%)
* Outside engineering and/or business (69%).
Clearly, the trend toward university-wide entrepreneurship has
continued. Another aspect of the data is notable: there is a stronger
emphasis on entrepreneurship at the undergraduate level than the
graduate level. This is likely the reason that ranking systems began to
distinguish between the two and started publishing separate rankings a
few years ago.
ARE EXISTING RANKING SYSTEMS MEASURING THE RIGHT THING?
The trend toward university-wide entrepreneurship raises the
question of whether current ranking systems are measuring the right
thing with their metrics. In looking at the criteria (where available)
of the various ranking systems, the following characteristics pose
difficulties when it comes to reflecting the opportunities that are
found in schools and colleges with university-wide entrepreneurship
programs:
* Startups are highly valued. Most of the narratives explaining the
rankings focus on business creation or ownership by students, faculty,
staff and alumni.
* Metrics are vague. The approaches to ranking range from
unstructured interviews (Fortune) to standardized surveys
(Entrepreneur). What is unclear is how the results are summarized into a
numerical ranking.
* Centralized responses are required from the university. When the
media company approaches the university, it is expected that a single
entity can provide answers to the questions that are used in the ranking
methodology.
Startups as a Measure of Effectiveness
It is highly appealing from a PR perspective for universities to
showcase young startups that emerge from their student bodies. Such
young entrepreneurs serve as role models and make good copy for
magazines and brochures. Nonetheless, the use of startups as a major way
to measure the success or failure of entrepreneurship programs has at
least two major limitations. First, such an approach ignores many other,
broader gains that come from the study of entrepreneurship and the
nurturing of entrepreneurial spirit. When building an entrepreneurship
program, the goal is not necessarily to set up a system for immediate
success. For example, only 44 percent of the 160 programs examined were
explicit about venture creation in their mission statements or primary
materials. To expect youthful entrepreneurs to be successful as a
standard of the program is counter to the mission of setting up the
system to prepare the most students for future success.
To understand the broader aspects of entrepreneurship education,
consider the framework suggested by Yusuf (2005), who defines
entrepreneurship as the "generation of value through change."
This approach embraces both social and economic change and also includes
high-risk change and low-risk change, and thus broadens what can be the
topics and approaches of entrepreneurship education. Yusuf categorizes
entrepreneurship into the study of how value is generated through change
in four contexts: (1) social intrapreneurship, (2) grassroots social
entrepreneurship, 3) corporate intrapreneurship, or (4) independent
entrepreneurship. Using startups as a primary metric in ranking systems
limits the information to just the fourth context, missing the other
three altogether.
Building on Yusuf's framework, an additional concept can be
added, to further define entrepreneurship as the generation of
sustainable value through change. Thus, the purpose of entrepreneurship
education can be recast as an effort to develop and nurture the ability
to initiate and/or accelerate the creation of lasting economic and/or
social value through change. Educating students (in entrepreneurship
classes) to understand how to identify, evaluate and exploit
opportunities for generating sustainable value through change in all
settings has a far greater impact for students and society than simply
helping individuals start businesses, even if it is a much more
difficult thing to measure when compared with counting startup
enterprises. The current ranking systems are not adequately capturing
this broader mission of entrepreneurship education.
A second argument against the heavy weighting of how many startup
companies are created by students and faculty is that it ignores the
latent effects of entrepreneurial education. Although some individuals
do start a business within several years of graduating from college, it
is really the impact of entrepreneurship education throughout the career
of the individuals that matters. In addition, when entrepreneurship is
taught outside a business school context, it is even less valid to look
at startups as a primary measure of effectiveness or success. Programs
trying to infuse their curricula with entrepreneurial thinking do not
necessarily expect the result to be immediate business creation. Through
their focus on venture creation, the current ranking systems are looking
at the short-term gains rather than the long-term gains of
entrepreneurship education.
Vague Metrics and the Difficulty of Collecting Data from a Single
Point of Contact
There are other ways that current ranking systems are out of sync
with the trend toward cross-curriculum entrepreneurship education.
Although none of the four ranking systems studied have published the
algorithms and/or weighting systems they use, presumably some are based
strictly on the collection of specific data about programs
(BusinessWeek) while others take a journalistic approach to the problem,
gathering more anecdotal information from phone interviews and other
qualitative sources. Each of these approaches has serious shortcomings
when assembling information about programs that span the university.
As entrepreneurship education moves to a university-wide model, it
stretches the boundaries of what is taught and where programs are
located. When ranking systems depend on journalistic research, it is
difficult to ferret out all the interesting places entrepreneurship may
be manifested within a university. For survey-based rankings, while it
is important that there be a single point of contact to answer questions
for all things entrepreneurial at the institution, there simply may not
exist such a single entity with knowledge of all the programs. Streeter
and Jaquette (2002) found that more than 30 percent of university
programs follow a "radiant model," in which the locus of
control is highly decentralized when compared with "magnet"
models where the MBA program controls most of the faculty, courses and
resources. Gathering information from such programs, whether
quantitative or qualitative, can be very hit or miss. Accuracy of the
resulting rankings comes into question as a result.
To summarize, the current rankings face a serious dilemma in
capturing the "best" of entrepreneurship education when their
metrics are vague. Collecting accurate data is an issue and the focus is
on venture startups. It may not be surprising, therefore, that of the
schools deeply funded by the Kauffman Foundation, only two are on any of
the four systems' top 10 lists.
THE CENTRAL DILEMMA AND A SUGGESTED REMEDY
As argued above, there are serious limitations in the current
ranking systems regarding the trend toward university-wide
entrepreneurship because the criteria used cannot accurately reflect
what is happening in the field. Thus, in the absence of other
information, rankings in publications are hurting the ability of
entrepreneurship programs to manage their brands effectively when they
inaccurately represent the landscape for entrepreneurship education.
Consumers use ranking systems to sort their options in a very crowded
information market and to inform themselves about the relatively new
field of entrepreneurship. Until now, rankings for entrepreneurship
programs did not have as critical an impact as that seen in the rankings
game at the MBA level; however, as programs increase and the field
becomes more competitive, the stakes are higher, and entrepreneurship
rankings will cause the same kinds of problems as those caused in
B-schools.
Therefore, it is recommended that the field move to create an
information system much like the database being created at the
university level. The guiding principles of such a system should be:
Centralized information.
Entrepreneurially oriented students can visit individual websites,
but clearly the widespread use of rankings means they are looking for
centralized sources of information and this database will serve as a
clearinghouse.
User-generated and maintained.
In this world of Web 2.0, it is feasible that a central wiki-based
or Facebook like site be populated with data generated by each school.
One option would be to have a major (neutral) foundation create and
maintain the database. Foundations focused on entrepreneurship have a
stake in tracking programs, and such a database would be viewed by large
numbers of prospective students, providing a branding/exposure
opportunity for the foundation. Such a system of self-identification
would have at least three benefits, because it would be:
* Viral in its spread.
* Self-sustaining, with each entrepreneurship program responsible
for their own section of the site.
* Easily updated (since these programs change frequently).
* Customizable, since the system would allow users to:
--weight various factors according to what they see as important
criteria
--perform advanced searches that could combine various criteria
(entrepreneurship and nursing, for example).
Customizable to reflect several emphases within a given university.
The system must allow decentralized programs to showcase their
various sub-programs.
Not simply focused on teaching.
Such an information system should allow entrepreneurship programs
to reflect the full range of offerings that impact graduate and
undergraduate students:
* Teaching, including lecture-based classes, but not limited to
that. For example, teaching based on:
--Case studies
--Business planning classes
--Practical consultations with small businesses
--Prototyping class for engineers
--Trips to developing countries to impact social needs
--Guest lecture series featuring entrepreneurs and business leaders
--Simulation or gaming.
* Non-curricular opportunities, such as clubs and competitions.
* Internships and career development.
* Research productivity and graduate education.
* Outreach to businesses (student, local and beyond) through
incubators, conferences, and extension activities.
* Alumni programs.
* Commercialization efforts.
Created by a neutral party.
Either a foundation or a cross-university group should create this
tool in order to have integrity and authenticity.
As a centralized site, the database can be promoted to users as
more authoritative and efficient. Cornell University recently went
through a similar exercise when it created the Entrepreneurship@Cornell
(E@C) website (http://eship.cornell.edu). Students, alumni and
entrepreneurs were having trouble wading through the various programs
and resources available in all nine schools and colleges within Cornell
that participate in entrepreneurship education. To brand and communicate
the scope of its offerings more clearly, the central E@C program created
the e-ship site as an easy way for anyone to see all the entrepreneurial
courses, activities and resources around campus and/or to sort by field
of interest or other criteria. This type of centralized information
system is already happening at the university level, as illustrated by
the launch of U-Can (http://www.ucan-network.org/), a national database
with about 400 schools participating.
CONCLUSION
It is critical that the field of entrepreneurship improve the way
that entrepreneurship programs are communicated to the world. It is
critical to take advantage of the opportunity to engage the largest
number of students possible in purposeful entrepreneurial education that
supports each individual's long-term success and the success of
society itself. Confidence and technical ability is widespread among
students; they need an extra edge in their education. Entrepreneurship
courses, activities, research, and outreach can provide that edge,
whether in social entrepreneurship or high-tech venturing, whether in
venture creation or intrapreneurial activities inside corporate America
or the government. Entrepreneurship education, the teaching of how to
create value through change, provides life-long benefits and engagement
for students no matter where they go professionally. The world is flat
and great global problems are ahead. Current graduates will have more
job change and disruption in their 20s than their parents faced in a
lifetime.
Solving those problems will require entrepreneurial thinking across
all fields, and entrepreneurship education will continue to blur lines
across disciplines and fields; thus, an effective information system is
needed much more than a ranking of programs in order to attract as many
students as possible to entrepreneurship programs that emerged in the
past two decades and are more relevant than ever.
The rankings game will continue; however, none of the ranking
systems can effectively sort the opportunities for prospective students
and their parents. There are too many insurmountable issues with data
and metrics, and the systems are too far out of sync with the current
direction of entrepreneurship programs. Due to inconsistencies of the
current ranking systems, they present no clear "winners" but
hold up each year only a sampling of the great programs that exist
throughout the country.
Administrators and alumni do pay attention to rankings, so even if
promotion criteria remains heavily focused on research productivity,
faculty should make sure they get full credit for the entrepreneurship
programs they build (which may have all elements--teaching, research and
extension). By supporting and contributing to a central database,
faculty members can showcase their activities and provide a more
accurate view to stakeholders, thereby making the various ranking
systems less relevant. It is up to all of us in the field to lobby for
and contribute to a centralized, up-to-date information system that will
stand up to scrutiny and allow the public to see inside our many and
varied programs and to find their way to a place in the entrepreneurial
landscape where they can best flourish.
Appendix 1. List of 160 Schools Studied
for Location of Entrepreneurship Program
Babson College
Baruch College, CUNY
Baylor University
Binghamton University
Bradley University
Cal. State Univ. at Stanislaus
Cal. State Univ., Fresno
Claremont Grad. University
Clarkson University, NY
DePaul University
Drake University, IA
Duquesne University
Elon University
Emory University
Fairleigh Dickinson Univ.
Francis Marion University
F. W. Olin College of Eng.
Hofstra University
Illinois State University
James Madison University
Johnson & Wales University
Kennesaw State University
Loyola Marymount University
Loyola University Chicago
Marshall University
Millikin University, IL
Monterey Inst. of Int. Studies
Morehead State University
Northeastern State Univ., OK
Plymouth State Univ., NH
Rider University, NJ
Rollins College, FL
Saint Louis University
Seattle University
Simmons College S of Mgt
Southern Illinois University
Southern Methodist Univ.
SUNY--Oswego
Stephens College, MO
Texas Christian University
Tulane University
University of Alabama
Univ. of California, S. Cruz
University of Dayton
University of New Hampshire
University of Puget Sound
University of Utah
University of West Georgia
West Virginia University
Xavier University--OH
Allegheny College, PA
Auburn University
Belmont University, TN
Beloit College, WI
Berea College
Boston University
Brigham Young University
CSU, S. Bernardino
Central Michigan University
Chapman University, CA
Clemson University
Colorado State University
Columbia College Chicago
Cornell University
Creighton University, NE
Dartmouth College
Drexel University
Eastern Michigan University
Emerson College
Flagler College
Florida Inter. University
Florida State University
George Washington Univ.
Georgia Institute of Tech.
Gonzaga University
Grove City College, PA
Howard University
Indiana University
Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania
Iowa State University
Johns Hopkins University
Juniata College
Kansas State University
Kent State University
Lamar University, TX
Lehigh University
Louisiana State University
Miami University, OH
Michigan Tech. University
Minnesota State University
Muhlenberg College
New York University
N. Carolina State University
Northeastern University
Northern Kentucky University
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Oregon State University
Pace University
Pennsylvania State University
Quinnipiac University, CT
RPI
Rochester Institute of Tech.
Rose-Hulman Institute Tech.
Rowan University
San Diego State University
Seton Hill University
St. Mary's University
St. Olaf College, MN
Stanford University
Suffolk University
Syracuse University
Temple University
Texas A&M University
Texas Tech University
Thunderbird, AZ
Tuskegee University
University of Akron
University of Arizona
UCLA
University of Central Florida
University of Cincinnati
Univ. of Colorado at Boulder
Univ. of Colorado at Denver
University of Dallas
University of Florida
University of Houston
University of Illinois
University of Illinois, Chicago
University of Iowa
University of Kansas
University of Louisville, KY
University of Maryland
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota
Univ. of Nebraska--Lincoln
Univ. of Nebraska--Omaha
UNC, Chapel Hill
University of North Dakota
University of Northern Iowa
University of Notre Dame
University of Oklahoma
University of Oregon
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
University of Portland
University of San Francisco
University of South Dakota
University of South Florida
Univ. of Southern California
University of St. Thomas
University of Texas at Dallas
University of Central Florida
University of Virginia
University of Washington
Univ. of Wisconsin Madison
Utah State University
Vanderbilt University
Wake Forest University
Western Carolina University
Worcester Poly. Institute
REFERENCES
Dichev, I.D. (1999). How good are business school rankings? Journal
of Business, 72(2), 201-213.
Gioia, D.A. and K.G. Corley (2002). Being good versus looking good:
Business school rankings and the circean transformation from substance
to image. Academy ofManagement Learning and Education, 1, 107-120.
Hoover, Eric (2007, September 7). U.S. News rankings. The Chronicle
of Higher Education, 45.
Karey, K. (2006, September). College rankings reformed: The case
for a new order in higher education. Education Sector Reports, 1-30.
Kauffman Foundation website--http://kauffman.org.
Morgeson, F.P. and J.D. Nahrgang (2008). Same as it ever was:
Recognizing stability in the Business Week rankings. Academy
ofManagement Learning & Education, 7(1), 26-41.
Policano, A.J. (2007). The rankings game: And the winner is ....
Journal ofManagement Development, 26(1), 43-48.
Streeter, D. and J.P. Jaquette (2004). Entrepreneurship education
in the modern university--University-wide entrepreneurship education:
Alternative models and current trends. Proceedings, Rural Community
Economic Development: Empowering Rural Communities Through
Entrepreneurship, Experiences from the 1890 LandGrant Institutions,
57-89.
Vesper, K.H. and W.G. Gartner (1997). Measuring progress in
entrepreneurship education. Journal of Business Venturing, 12, 403-421.
Yusuf, J.W. (2005). Putting entrepreneurship in its rightful place:
A typology for defining entrepreneurship across private, public and
nonprofit sectors. Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(2), 113-127.
Zemsky, R. (2008). The rain man cometh-again. Graduate School of
Education, GSE Publications, University of Pennsylvania, State College,
PA, 5-14.
Deborah H. Streeter, Cornell University
Romi Kher, Cornell University
John P. Jaquette, Jr., Executive Director, Entrepreneurship@Cornell
Table 1. Entrepreneurship Rankings Systems
Magazine Frequency Ranking Description
BusinessWeek MBA Even years Surveys to students, recruiters
since 1988, and schools with quantitative
entrepreneurship data collection
since 2004
Entrepreneur Annual since 2002 Surveys to gather information
on mentoring, experiential
learning, specific course
offerings, alumni successes
and career prospects
Fortune Small Inaugural year 2007 Opinion surveys conducted on
Business/CNN students, faculty,
Money entrepreneurs and VCs
US News Since 1983, 7 primary survey categories-
entrepreneurship peer assessment, retention,
since 2007 faculty resources, student
selectivity, financial resources,
graduation rates and alumni
giving rates
Magazine Ranking Style Quantitative/
Qualitative Mix
BusinessWeek Alphabetical Mix of qualitative and
list quantitative data.
Quantitative
methodology
Entrepreneur Numerical Primarily qualitative
ranking
Fortune Small Alphabetical Qualitative and
Business/CNN list subjective
Money methodology
US News Numerical Primarily quantitative
ranks methodology
Table 2. Entrepreneur Magazine (now Entrepreneur Media)
Rankings of Top 10 Undergraduate Programs, 2005-2008
Undergraduate Entrepreneurship
Programs 2005 * 2006 2007 2008
University of Houston -- -- 2 1
Babson College 1T 10 1 2
Drexel University -- 6 3 3
University of Dayton -- 5 5 4
The University of Arizona 1T 1 4 5
Temple University 2T 4 8 6
DePaul University 1T 3 7 7
University of Oklahoma -- -- -- 8
University of Southern California -- -- -- 9
Chapman -- -- -- 10
Chapman University -- -- 6
University of North Dakota -- 8 9
Loyola Marymount University -- -- 10
Syracuse University 1T 2 --
Fairleigh Dickinson University -- 7 --
University of Illinois, Chicago -- 9 --
* Prior to 2006, Entrepreneur Magazine used Entrepoint and only listed
programs alphabetically in tiers. 1T = 1st tier; 2T = 2nd tier; 3T =
3rd tier.
Table 3. Entrepreneur Magazine (now Entrepreneur Media)
Rankings of Top 10 Graduate Programs, 2005-2008
Graduate Programs 2005 2006 2007 2008
Babson College 1T -- 2 1
DePaul University 1T 2 5 2
University of Southern California 1T -- 1 3
The University of Arizona 1T 6 3 4
University of South Florida -- -- 9 5
University of Illinois at Chicago -- -- 10 6
University of California, Los Angeles 2T -- 6 7
Drexel University -- -- 7 8
Table 3. Entrepreneur Magazine (now Entrepreneur Media)
Rankings of Top 10 Graduate Programs, 2005-2008
Graduate Programs 2005 2006 2007 2008
Chapman University -- -- 8 9
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 1T -- 4 10
Syracuse University 1T 1 -- --
Northwestern University 2T 3 -- --
California State University, San Bernardino -- 4 -- --
University of Washington 3T 5 -- --
Temple University 2T 7 -- --
Monterey Institute of International Studies -- 8 -- --
Indiana University 2T 9 -- --
University of Louisville -- 10 -- --
* Prior to 2006, Entrepreneur Magazine used Entrepoint and only
listed programs alphabetically in tiers. 1T = 1st tier; 2T = 2nd
tier; 3T = 3rd tier.
Table 4. Comparisons of Top 10 Schools Across Four Ranking Systems,
Data Available for Decision-makers in September 2008
Entrepreneur Top US News & World
Universities 10 ranking-2008 Report--2009
Listed Alphabetically Undergrad Grad Undergrad Grad
Babson College 2 1 1 1
Ball State 10
Chapman 10 9
DePaul 7 2
Drexel 3 8
Harvard 3
Indiana 2 7
MIT 5 5
Stanford 2
Syracuse 8
Temple 6
UC Berkeley 10 8
UCLA 7
UNC Chapel Hill 10
Univ. of Dayton 4 4
Univ. of Illinois, Chicago 6
Univ. of S. Florida 5
Univ. of Southern Cal 9 3 4 6
Univ. of Arizona 5 5 5
Univ. of Maryland 9
Univ. of Oklahoma 8
Univ. of Pennsylvania 2 4
Univ. of Texas, Austin 7 9
University of Houston 1
University of N. Carolina 10 10
Business
Week 2006 Fortune/CNN 2007
Universities Alpha only Alpha only
Listed Alphabetically Grad Undergrad MBA List
Babson College * * *
Ball State *
Chapman
DePaul * *
Drexel
Harvard
Indiana * *
MIT *
Stanford * * *
Syracuse * *
Temple *
UC Berkeley * * *
UCLA * *
UNC Chapel Hill * *
Univ. of Dayton
Univ. of Illinois, Chicago *
Univ. of S. Florida
Univ. of Southern Cal * *
Univ. of Arizona * *
Univ. of Maryland * *
Univ. of Oklahoma
Univ. of Pennsylvania * * *
Univ. of Texas, Austin * *
University of Houston
University of N. Carolina
