Rice’s graduate entrepreneurship program again ranked among top 10 in US

David Ruth
713-348-6327
druth@rice.edu

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu

Rice’s graduate entrepreneurship program again ranked among top 10 in US

HOUSTON – (Nov. 10, 2015) – Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business has the No. 6 graduate entrepreneurship program in the U.S., according to rankings announced today by the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine. This marks the seventh year in a row the Jones School has been ranked as a top 10 graduate program in entrepreneurship.

The 2015 ranking was based on a survey from May through August of more than 300 undergraduate and graduate schools offering programs in entrepreneurship studies. The Princeton Review survey looked at each school’s commitment to entrepreneurship education inside and outside the classroom. More than three dozen metrics were analyzed for the rankings. Among them were the percentage of faculty, students and alumni actively and successfully involved in entrepreneurial endeavors, the number and reach of mentorship programs and funding for scholarships and grants for entrepreneurial studies and projects. The survey results will be published in the December issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

The Jones School’s strong commitment to entrepreneurship was reinforced by the launch of the Rice Entrepreneurship Initiative this fall as a cross-disciplinary initiative to provide students from across the university with skills and knowledge to succeed in a world where entrepreneurial capabilities are increasingly critical for meaningful and influential careers. The initiative is led by Yael Hochberg, the Ralph S. O’Connor Associate Professor of Finance and Entrepreneurship at the Jones School, who is considered one of the foremost experts on accelerator programs and serves as managing director of the annual Seed Accelerator Rankings Project.

The Jones School’s entrepreneurship program was founded by nationally recognized faculty led by Al Napier and Edward Williams. The school offers more than 30 courses taught by professors with significant entrepreneurial experience.

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, led by managing director Brad Burke, hosts the world’s largest and richest student startup competition, the Rice Business Plan Competition, and has been a global leader in the creation and commercialization of new products and technologies. Burke was recently also named executive director of the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers, which represents more than 225 university entrepreneurship programs and is now housed at Rice.

OwlSpark, the Rice student startup accelerator founded in 2013, offers a summer program that provides teams of students and recent alumni with the funding, space, industrial and academic mentorship and networking opportunities required to launch their companies. OwlSpark is managed by Kerri Smith from the Rice Alliance, who also leads Rice’s partnership with the University of Texas and Texas A&M in launching the Southwest NSF I-Corps Node in Texas.

The Jones Graduate School Entrepreneurs Organization and Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program are two additional examples of the full complement of innovative programs and opportunities graduate students have to translate ideas into action.

To view the complete rankings, visit www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/top-entrepreneur.

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For more information, contact Jeff Falk, associate director of national media relations at Rice, at 713-348-6775 or jfalk@rice.edu.

Follow the Jones Graduate School of Business via Twitter @RiceMBA.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Related Materials:

Jones Graduate School of Business: http://business.rice.edu.