USF's Graduate Entrepreneurship Program Ranked #5 in the Nation [10/20/2008]

by Barbara Perkins

The graduate entrepreneurship program at the University of South Florida has been ranked as the fifth best program in the nation, and is the only Florida public university included in the 2008 ranking compiled by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine. USF’s interdisciplinary program, which is just six years old, is included in the magazine’s October issue ranking the nation’s best educational programs. The graduate program in entrepreneurship is ranked second among all public universities in the United States.

Despite the program’s youth, USF’s Center for Entrepreneurship has also received other honors. The United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) lauded the center for three consecutive years, most recently in January 2006. USASBE awarded its top national “Innovative Pedagogy for Entrepreneurship Education Award” to USF, honoring the center’s programs linking business, engineering, science and medicine across the USF Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Master of Science Degree in Entrepreneurship in Applied Technologies.

The university is in the planning stages for an undergraduate entrepreneurship program, aiming for a 2009 program launch.

The Princeton Review, a leading provider of educational services, surveyed more than 2,300 undergraduate and business schools about their entrepreneurship offerings. Schools were evaluated based on key criteria in the areas of academics and requirements, students and faculty, and outside-the-classroom experiences.

More than thirty new ventures have been launched by graduates of USF’s Center for Entrepreneurship, ventures that bolster existing business clusters and create new business areas of concentration. Fountain said start-ups sparked by the Entrepreneurship Program are important to the regional economy.