As college students across the country settle in to another semester of classes, America's next generation of entrepreneurs are getting the wisdom and tools they need to one day launch the next hit startup.
Of course, one doesn't have to finish college to launch a successful business (everyone knows the stories of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates by now). But much of the country's technology innovation can be credited to the work being done at the university level.
And where you go matters. Graduates of Stanford, for example, are approximately ninety times more likely than the general population to found a venture-backed tech company.
To identify the schools that produce the most students who become venture capital-backed founders, Pitchbook recently published a report that ranks universities by the number of entrepreneurs that have received funding. And the University of Wisconsin cracked the top 15.
UW-Madison has seen 461 graduates go on to launch VC-backed startup from 2006 through June 30, 2018, outpacing schools like Columbia, Brown, USC and Duke.
Stanford topped this year's list, followed by the University of California, Berkeley; MIT; Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Other top Midwest schools include the University of Michigan (7) and University of Illinois (10).
UW-Madison's entrepreneurs have produced 411 companies that have raised a total of $4.84 billion in venture capital, which is the lowest of any of the top 20 schools.
Take a look at the top 20 below, and read the full Pitchbook report here.
The Top undergraduate programs with the most VC-backed entrepreneurs
