It is now well-accepted that entrepreneurship contributes substantially to the world economy. Entrepreneurs bring new products and services to society, advance the state of knowledge with their innovations, and create jobs for themselves and others. As such, entrepreneurs play an integral role in the economic growth and advancement of their nations.

Iconic college dropout entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have become so popular as to promote the idea that entrepreneurship can’t be taught, especially not to those who pursue college degrees.

The lesser promoted realities are, first, that entrepreneurs are most often college graduates. In the Republic of Korea, for example, over 75 percent of male entrepreneurs and more than 69 percent of female entrepreneurs have an undergraduate college degree or higher level of education. Second, entrepreneurship can, in fact, be taught, as evidenced by the high startup rates of graduates of Babson College, which reports that 45 percent of its alumni own businesses.

College is the ideal time to instill entrepreneurial attitudes and abilities in students. These young people are building their knowledge and hope for promising careers, but they will set out on a path that evolves over time with their experiences and preferences.

This path may reveal opportunities for entrepreneurship sometime along the way. These may arise from the discovery of a solution to a vexing problem, a colleague or friend with an interesting business idea, or a crossroads in one’s career where building one’s own business represents the most promising employment option.

Even if these students end up in established companies, family businesses, social enterprises, or government, their entrepreneurial thinking can help sustain the viability of these organizations. In preparing our students for their future careers, we therefore need to equip them with entrepreneurial capabilities.

The question “Can entrepreneurship be taught?” needs to be replaced with what is now a more appropriate and useful question: “How can entrepreneurship be taught most effectively?” Babson College has examined this question longer and more frequently than any other college in the world, being the first school to establish entrepreneurship as a distinct academic discipline nearly 50 years ago. Two key principles have evolved to define entrepreneurship education at Babson.

First, entrepreneurship education requires practice. When professors lecture, the interaction is mainly one way. In entrepreneurship, however, there are no concepts that can be transferred from professor to student, and memorized and applied to all businesses. One can never predict what will happen, particularly when entrepreneurs are introducing solutions that are innovative. Students need to learn how to think and act when outcomes are uncertain, sensing and interpreting what is happening as they move forward, as well as adjusting or diverging from their paths along the way. Classes need to have fewer lectures and more experimentation, team problem solving, reflection and practice.

Second, entrepreneurship education exists, not just in the classroom, but in the ecosystem that envelopes the campus and beyond. Babson has developed a culture that embraces experimentation and innovation; created a physical campus that includes living and learning spaces for entrepreneurs; promotes programs and activities that enable students to practice and learn; and hires professors with entrepreneurial experience and an understanding of experiential learning.

Students have access to professors and other experts, collaborative peers, and the ability to try, and perhaps fail, in a low risk environment. We can think of these two principles as containing a micro and a macro orientation. With regard to the former, colleges need to constantly assess and transform how they conduct their classes, in particular entrepreneurship ones. For the latter, they need to take a broader (macro-level) view of entrepreneurship education as encompassing the whole student experience.

By Donna Kelley, Ph.D.
Professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College

Donna Kelley is a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College, and holds the Frederic C. Hamilton chair of Free Enterprise. She has served as a board member of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association since 2007. She has co-authored numerous Global Entrepreneurship Monitor reports on global and women’s entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education and training and entrepreneurship in the US, Korea and Africa.-- Ed.