Young guns: a new generation of college students makes entrepreneurship its business

Entrepreneur, Oct, 1996 by Lynn Beresford

The bed isn't made. The coffee maker balances precariously on the bookshelf next to a well-worn copy of The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. The only signs of life are a personal computer running a contact management program and an answering machine doing its job. Welcome to the modern-day college dorm room.

This is college, but its a far cry from "Animal House." Instead of ditching class to swill beer, a new breed of college students is more likely to skip school to attend breakfast meetings with venture capital groups or powwow with potential business partners. College campuses are becoming veritable hothouses for entrepreneurship as formalized academic programs yield a new generation of street-smart, business-savvy entrepreneurs.

Jennifer Kushell is part of this generation. She's ambitious, driven and definitely young. The 23-year-old president of her own company, The Young Entrepreneurs Network, the recent college graduate nurtured her inborn entrepreneurial tendencies while still attending Boston University. Now, having started four small businesses, all while still in school, Kushell has a head start in the real world. Her business publishes an online directory of entrepreneurs from 40 countries - all between the ages of 10 and 35. She's also started a quarterly newsletter that explores issues young entrepreneurs face.

GUIDING FORCES

There is a host of reasons entrepreneurs are getting younger and younger. For one thing, downsizing and widespread layoffs have createad a job market that's low on security, to put it mildly. For young people, many of whom have seen their parents and other relatives become casualties of changing economic times, the options upon graduation aren't quite what they used to be.

For savvy students, however, that isn't necessarily bad. Kushell, for one, believes "the opportunities for younger people are now more [plentiful] than ever before. These people can start their own businesses and graduate as the president of a company,"

Administrators at universities that offer entrepreneurship programs say they've witnessed a change in college students in the last few years. Bill Bygrave, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, says the change in student's attitudes is "profound."

"Young people are recognizing that they've got to be more responsible for their own destiny," Bygrave says. "For many of them, that means staring their own company."

Young people also have more entrepreneurial role models than their parents did. America's ideas of success have changed as much as the economy has. Fifty years ago, judges, lawyers, doctors and the like were held up as our highest role models. These days, though, if you were to ask a bunch of 11-year-olds who their hero is, they'd likely say Bill Gates.

Finally, another reason more young people are striking out on their own is that some of the nations most noted universities are offering entrepreneurship programs that prepare students for the rigors of the lifestyle. Now, instead of simply learning by trial and error, young entrepreneurs can immerse themselves in practical classes that put them ahead of the game in running small businesses.

STAYING AFTER SCHOOL

In 1970, only 16 universities nationwide offered entrepreneurship courses. According to Karl Vesper, a professor of business administration at the University of Washington, today there are more than 400 such schools. Among the most highly regarded are Babson; Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah; Cornell University in Ithaca, New York; Harvard Business School in Boston; New York University in New York City; University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles and the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia. Not only are there more schools offering entrepreneurship programs today, but the institutions that pioneered entrepreneurship education have fine-tuned and beefed up their programs, even adding graduate degrees to the mix.

As far as reputation is concerned, Babson College wins, hands down. It was ranked number one for its undergraduate entrepreneurship program in 1995 and 1996 and for its graduate program in 1995 by U.S. News & World Report. "Most people would agree we have the most complete program in the country," says by grave. The undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurship program were completely revamped three years ago to give students practical information as well as ideas and theories. As part of the MBA program, faculty members team-teach courses so students get two points of view in one class. Babson also touts its mentor program, in which teams of four students work with local corporations on special projects.

Babsons undergraduate entrepreneurship program exposes students to a well-rounded mix of information systems, management and entrepreneurial skills. Each class of approximately 42 students is given $3,000 with which to start a business. During the first semester, students decide on a concept and write a formal business plan@ during the second semester, they launch and nurture the company. Businesses have ranged from dorm-room foodservice companies to campus CD clubs. "So far, no one's gone bankrupt," says Bygrave, "but if they do, we'll put them through a simulated bankruptcy."