250 Colleges Surveyed: How Entrepreneur Ranks 2027's Top Startup Schools

Entrepreneur and The Princeton Review surveyed more than 250 colleges and universities last summer to build their 2027 ranking of the Top 50 undergraduate and Top 50 graduate programs for entrepreneurs. It is the twentieth consecutive year the two organizations have partnered on the list. What the announcement does not include, at least in this excerpt, is the ranking itself — no school names, no positions, no headline figures.

What does the partnership actually claim?

The publishers pose a deliberately open question: "Can entrepreneurship be taught? We aim to find out." Their framing is confident but hedged. They argue that strong programs combine theory with real-world experience, teach the mechanics of business, provide guided project development, and connect students to networks of peers, investors and, as they put it, "maybe even future cofounders."

The methodology's central claim is that rankings should measure outcomes rather than curricula. To qualify, a program must demonstrate what happens after graduation: whether alumni launch businesses, build networks, and raise outside funding. That is a results-based standard, and it is the strongest part of the design.

The caveat comes from the publishers themselves. "Of course, the entrepreneurial spirit cannot be taught in a classroom," they write. "That's a personal journey, and everyone comes to it a little differently." Their conclusion — "great schools produce great entrepreneurs" — is stated as what the data "tells a story" of, not as a proven causal result. Selection effects, where ambitious founders choose prestigious programs in the first place, go unaddressed.

Which metrics decided the rankings?

The survey collected data across three categories. Readers evaluating any program against them can use the same checklist.

• Academics and requirements. Whether a school offers a major, minor, concentration or full degree in entrepreneurship; how many entrepreneurship courses it teaches across topics including new technology, social entrepreneurship, business analytics, idea development and venture capital; and whether cross-disciplinary work with students in other majors — the publishers cite pairing with computer engineering students to develop a product — is available.
• Outside the classroom. The number and dollar value of scholarships; the count of outside mentors working with students; annual business-plan and new-venture competitions, hackathons, pitch-deck and startup weekends, including prize money amounts; and the total prize money students won from external competitions.
• Students and faculty. Total full- and part-time enrollment in entrepreneurship courses in the 2024–2025 academic year; how many of those students produced an actionable business plan for a startup; companies founded by graduates over the past five and past ten years; investor funding raised by those companies; the number of faculty teaching entrepreneurship during the year; and how many of those faculty members have started, bought or run a business themselves.

The full methodology and detailed rankings are published at princetonreview.com/entrepreneur.

What should readers watch for?

The alumni-funding metric is the one with real teeth. Counting companies started over five- and ten-year windows, and the capital those companies raised, ties a program's reputation to verifiable market outcomes rather than marketing copy. The faculty-entrepreneur count applies a similar test to the teachers, not just the taught.

Two gaps remain. The methodology is a self-reported survey, which favors schools with staff to compile the data and incentives to report generously. And the publishers' own admission — that mindset, not coursework, drives entrepreneurial success — limits how much weight the rankings can bear.

For prospective founders and the employers and investors who screen them, the list offers a useful proxy: which institutions put students in front of mentors, competitions and capital before graduation. The results, when published in full, will matter less as a verdict on teaching and more as a map of where startup ecosystems concentrate on campus.