Entrepreneurial activity defines the American way. We are rooted in the belief that working hard and tirelessly will get us to places beyond our very imagination. We will generate great sums of wealth and create enterprises with blossoming technological innovation. We are told about how vital entrepreneurs are to our economy and society, but how do you become one of these big wigs who connect the realms of theory and practice together to deliver a whole new venture to human kind? Connect, act, and deliver while still in college. Think about it: By combining young, uniquely minded creative students with an economically challenging job market has resulted in an excess amount of recently minted graduates heading into the entrepreneurial field.
The Youth Entrepreneurship Study produced by the Young Entrepreneurship Council and Buzz Marketing Group last year surveyed 1,000 college students and recent grads to figure out just how inclined youth were to begin their own startups. According to the study, more than a third (36%) were "side-preneurs," meaning they had their own businesses while still in school, and around one in five (21%) began their ventures directly after college due to slim to no pickings in the job market. Of those accounted for in the survey, 73% had never taken a class in entrepreneurship and even those who did, 70% labeled the courses they took as "inadequate."
This year the Kauffman Foundation came out with a report that accurately supports the YEC study. The Kauffman Foundation found that 29.4% of entrepreneurs were between the ages of 20 and 34 and 160,000 startups a month are led by Millenials. Launching great technological advances, the Millennials are proving to be a generation to be reckoned with. Clearly the fervor is there.
Over the past few months, I have covered numerous student startups like VirtualU, SafeLiCell, BrandREP, YellowFlag, which all have one main characteristic in common: they belonged to either an entrepreneur club or incubator advertised on campus. To highlight the strides D.C. area colleges have made to assist in the production and growth of student startups, I have decided to outline five of the outstanding programs currently offered. To me, these schools have proven that they care about the future of their students and believe in the success that can come from youthful ventures. View the slideshow above to find out which colleges made the cut.
