UMD Ranked Among Nation's Elite in Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Three years into President Wallace Loh’s campus-wide initiative to engage students of all majors in innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E), the University of Maryland (UMD) has been named a Top 25 School for Entrepreneurship Studies by The Princeton Review.

In the 2016 rankings released today and featured in the December issue of Entrepreneur Magazine, UMD climbed 11 spots from last year to No. 10 for undergraduate entrepreneurship education. This marks the fifth consecutive year that UMD has been named a top 25 program, and the first time the university has ranked in the top 10. UMD also ranked No. 6 among public universities and No. 18 for its graduate program.

“I&E at UMD is not limited to the idea of starting companies. We aim to teach innovation methods and cultivate entrepreneurial mindsets to prepare all students to tackle our world’s big challenges whether they’re at startup companies, large companies, non-profits, the public sector, or anywhere else,” said Dean Chang, associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship at UMD and head of the Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. “In fact, non-business and non-STEM students are every bit as important to include in the innovation and entrepreneurship process because that process is not as rich and has inferior outcomes without that diversity.”

Over the past year, student engagements in innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) at UMD reached over 12,000, more than tripling since 2013. Course enrollments accounted for more than 8,000 and extracurricular activities accounted for 4,000. UMD offers 141 innovation and entrepreneurship courses taught by 103 faculty representing 34 different campus departments. Students have access to more than 21 I&E mentoring programs involving more than 113 external mentors. There are 13 different competitions and grant and seed funds that award up to $750,000 for the best innovations in business, social value, technology, sustainability, and other areas.

In addition, UMD celebrates I&E during its annual '30 Days of EnTERPreneurship' and offers the #1 Entrepreneurship MOOC on Coursera with close to a million cumulative worldwide enrollments. UMD’s unique approach to engaging all students in I&E was featured earlier this year in a cover story in the Chronicle of Higher Education and also in the Huffington Post.

The Princeton Review tallied its rankings for top entrepreneurship programs based on a survey it conducted from May through August 2015 of more than 300 schools offering programs in entrepreneurship studies. While most entrepreneurship rankings only include UMD’s extensive business or engineering entrepreneurship programs, The Princeton Review additionally reflects UMD’s unique efforts to engage all 38,000 students in I&E across all 12 colleges and schools. The 60-question survey looked at each school’s commitment to entrepreneurship education inside and outside the classroom. More than three dozen data points were analyzed for the rankings, including:

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.

In addition to The Princeton Review rankings, UMD was named a top innovative school earlier this year by U.S. News & World Report, landing at No. 21.

For more information on The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s rankings, visit http://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/top-entrepreneur. To learn more about innovation and entrepreneurship at UMD, visit http://innovation.umd.edu/.

Published November 10, 2015