Diana Reed has caught an entrepreneurial fever that is sweeping the nation’s campuses, as students jam into classes to learn how to launch, finance, and run their own companies.And we’re not just talking about B-school students. Fledgling engineers, teachers, artists, pharmacists, lawyers, nurses, and even dancers have heard the siren call of the startup. Currently 1,992 two- and four-year colleges and universities offer at least one course in entrepreneurship, up from about 300 in the 1984-85 school year, according to a new survey by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship education.
Universities are investing heavily, offering these moguls in the making everything from residence halls outfitted as business incubators to startup money to access to business networks.
“Twenty years ago students who dared to say they wanted to start their own companies would be sent for counseling,” says Jerome Katz, a professor of management at St. Louis University, who has studied the trend. “Today entrepreneurship is the fastest-growing course of study on campuses nationwide.”
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