HOUSTON – (Nov. 16, 2021) – Rice Business is ranked the No. 1 graduate entrepreneurship program in the United States for 2022 by the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine. This is Rice Business’ third No. 1 ranking in a row, its sixth year in the top three and the 13th year in which it has ranked in the top 10 on this prestigious list.
The Rice entrepreneurship ecosystem combines academic courses and co-curricular entrepreneurship programs led by the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) with community-focused efforts led by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.
“Our No. 1 ranking is a reflection of the work and effort of our entrepreneurship faculty and staff to continually expand our programs and impact on behalf of our student and faculty founders,” said Peter Rodriguez, dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business. “Our three-years-running spot at the top is a testament to the Rice faculty, the depth and breadth of resources that are available to entrepreneurs and innovators during their time at Rice and beyond, and the students who have capitalized on their time at Rice to learn and launch their ventures from campus to the community.”
The placement comes on the heels of other recent high international rankings for Rice’s entrepreneurship programs, including No. 3 from Poets and Quants and No. 5 from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
“When you combine the experienced entrepreneurs and investors who serve as our faculty and mentors, and the kind of problem-rich environments we can immerse our students in to discover and explore industries undergoing tremendous change, that’s a recipe for building a unique and special campus ecosystem,” said Yael Hochberg, head of the Rice Entrepreneurship Initiative and Lilie and the Ralph S. O’Connor Professor of Entrepreneurship at Rice Business.
Rice student entrepreneurs develop their ventures through Lilie’s suite of experiential programs, leveraging resources such as the lab's state-of-the-art startup coworking space, equity-free funding and mentorship to accelerate their ventures, culminating with the Napier Rice Launch Challenge competition each spring.
The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship offers one of the largest and richest business plan competitions in the world, the world-renowned Rice Business Plan Competition, as well as the Rice Venture Forums, which showcase startups to the community and corporate world.
“Our students are able to launch promising business ideas and, with our connections, receive mentoring from members of the Houston entrepreneurial ecosystem and pitch to angel investors, venture capitalists and corporations,” said Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance. “These opportunities are unique to Rice students and aren’t found on most campuses.”
The Princeton Review tallied its 2022 rankings based on a survey of leaders at more than 300 schools offering entrepreneurship studies. The 60-question survey covered the schools’ commitment to entrepreneurship studies inside and outside the classroom. Topics included the percentage of students taking entrepreneurship courses, the number and reach of mentorship programs, the number of startups founded by recent alumni and the cash prizes offered at school-sponsored business plan competitions. In all, more than 40 data points were analyzed to develop the rankings, which will be published in the December issue of Entrepreneur magazine.
For more information on Rice Entrepreneurship, visit entrepreneurship.rice.edu or email the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at lilie@rice.edu.