New Jersey Institute of Technology was ranked among the 50 best schools in the country for undergraduates who want to become entrepreneurs by the Princeton Review on Wednesday.
NJIT, which was ranked No. 43, was the only New Jersey school cited.
The rankings are based on a survey by the Princeton Review conducted in partnership with Entrepreneur magazine taken in June-August 2019. It was the 15th survey the pair have conducted.
The survey solicited information from administrators at more than 300 undergraduate and graduate schools providing entrepreneurship studies. The 60-question survey analyzed over 40 data points, including the number and breadth of entrepreneurship-related courses, student enrollment in these courses, faculty’s entrepreneurial experience and the number of startups launched by alumni and the funding amounts they raised. It also examined the number and reach of mentorship programs, scholarships and grants for entrepreneurial studies, along with the level of support for school-sponsored business plan competitions.
Cesar Bandera, associate professor of entrepreneurship at NJIT’s Martin Tuchman School of Management, said the school was thrilled. He noted NJIT is an RI institution, the Carnegie Classification for very high research activity.
“NJIT is uniquely qualified to develop technological innovation with societal significance and market potential,” he said. “Placing among the Top 50 entrepreneurship programs in the county is a recognition of NJIT’s strengths in entrepreneurship curriculum, funding and mentorship for students and university-affiliated startups, and scholarly research and service in this discipline. There is no doubt — entrepreneurship is in NJIT’s DNA.”
Rob Franek, the Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief of the Top 50, said the selected schools have truly robust offerings in entrepreneurship studies with top faculties.
“Their courses are rich with in-class and out-of-class experiential components, and the financial and networking support their students receive is extraordinary,” he said.
NJIT offers 17 credit-bearing entrepreneurship courses, currently serving more than 450 students, as well as both major and minor entrepreneurship degrees. Two-thirds of its faculty has entrepreneurial experience, and, in the past five years, alumni startups have raised $1.1 million in funding.
Additionally, the university conducts extracurricular entrepreneurial activities that engage all of its colleges. Among them are the New Jersey Innovation Acceleration Center, which sponsors a New Business Model Competition; the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps at NJIT, which provides seed grants and technology commercialization training to faculty-student teams with competitive innovations; and the Tech Venture Support Program, which provides technology startups with market research and fundraising assistance.
As part of their experiential learning, entrepreneurship students are also involved with NJIT’s community small business incubator, VentureLink, the largest in New Jersey. Some go on to establish startups there, joining dozens of companies primarily in the biotechnology and telecommunications sectors. VentureLink provides budding entrepreneurs with educational workshops, professional networking, mentoring programs and more.
Here is a look at the Top 10:
- University of Houston
- Babson College (Massachusetts)
- Brigham Young University
- The University of Michigan
- Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico)
- University of Maryland
- Baylor University (Texas)
- Northeastern University
- Washington University (Missouri)
- University of Utah
