UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State has been ranked as the No. 27 school for undergraduate entrepreneurship studies by the Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine in the partnership's annual rankings released Nov. 12, moving up one spot from the previous year. Among schools in the Mid-Atlantic region, Penn State came in at No. 4.
The 2026 rankings are based on a survey the Princeton Review conducted in summer 2025 of administrators at nearly 300 schools in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe offering entrepreneurship studies. The education services company's methodology for the rankings considers more than 40 data points; among them are academic offerings, faculty credentials, mentorship and experiential learning opportunities, alumni entrepreneurship ventures and other distinctions.
Penn State's ranking was based off a comprehensive set of data that was drawn from across the University’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, including the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIENT) major in the Smeal College of Business; the intercollege Entrepreneurship & Innovation (ENTI) minor and the Center for Penn State Student Entrepreneurship in the Office of Undergraduate Education; and the Office of Entrepreneurship and Commercialization in the Office of the Senior Vice President for Research.
In alignment with goals set forth by University President Neeli Bendapudi, the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Penn State puts a focus on enhancing student success as well as increasing its overall statewide impact as Pennsylvania’s only land-grant university.
"Faculty throughout the University are working hard to advance academic-entrepreneurship programming,” said Kathy Bieschke, senior vice provost and interim dean of Undergraduate Education. “The ENTI minor remains a popular draw to students from many different majors and interests. This year the minor added an Energy Transition cluster, which offers students crucial skills in a critically important industry. I am continually impressed by the ways our faculty and students respond to a changing world."
Nearly 7,000 students from 230 majors enrolled in at least one entrepreneurship course offered through the ENTI minor or the CIENT major during the 2024-25 academic year.
The ENTI courses develop skills, knowledge and values in problem solving, innovation, opportunity recognition, self-efficacy, leadership, ethics, communications and learning from failure. Class sessions are typically workshops, discussions or team-learning formats, where students are challenged to create new ideas and be able to present with confidence and strive for solutions.
The CIENT major similarly develops problem solving and creative thinking skills, and is designed for students interested in managing innovation, re-inventing current businesses, supporting a family business, or starting new businesses with the intent of growing the economy and providing jobs for a diverse workforce.
Alumni of the CIENT major and ENTI minor have collectively raised $1,760,000 for their businesses over the past five years. These companies range from a car camping sleeping platform provider, to a military-focused apparel company, to a sports media company.
“The CIENT major provides students with a well-rounded, hands-on business education that they just can’t get anywhere else,” said Travis Lesser, instructor in entrepreneurship and coordinator for the CIENT major at Smeal. “Companies such as Goldman Sachs or McKinsey have recently brought on current seniors graduating in the spring, and others are following in the footsteps of other successful student entrepreneurs by hitting the ground running with their own companies when their time here at Penn State is through. This proves that we are providing the necessary tools for students to be the innovative thinkers our society needs.”
In addition to and in partnership with these academic offerings, the Invent Penn State initiative provides students with a network of expert mentors, hands-on events, pitch competitions, funding opportunities, and accelerator programs outside of the classroom to jump-start their entrepreneurial endeavors. These opportunities, combined with in-classroom learning, creates a robust, full-circle learning environment and experience for students to easily apply what they learn in the classroom to real-world experiences, with the full support of the University's entrepreneurial ecosystem behind them.
A signature program of Invent Penn State is the LaunchBox & Innovation Network, a network of 23 LaunchBoxes and innovation spaces embedded within Penn State's campus communities. These spaces are equipped with the no-cost resources such as accelerator programs, mentor expertise, co-working space and legal advice that early-stage startups need to succeed.
The University strives to support promising student startups not only through mentorship and programming, but also through awarding cash prizes. From the Invent Penn State Inc.U Competition to the Mont Alto LaunchBox LION Tank pitch competition, in the 2024-25 academic year, Penn State pitch competitions provided a total of $111,150 in cash prizes to undergraduate startups.
“Invent Penn State, along with the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem across the University, encourages students to integrate entrepreneurship into every aspect of their personal and professional journeys,” said James Delattre, associate vice president for research and director of the Office of Entrepreneurship and Commercialization. “Through programs like the Sheetz Fellows at Penn State Altoona, students gain hands-on, immersive experiences. This holistic model of entrepreneurial education equips them with the practical skills and mindset needed to succeed as entrepreneurs both in and beyond the classroom.”
In addition to the Princeton Review ranking, PitchBook, a capital market company, recently ranked Penn State No. 34 — up one spot from last year — on a list of the top 100 universities internationally ranked by undergraduate alumni entrepreneurs who have raised venture capital (VC) in the last decade. The rankings are created by PitchBook data and are based on an analysis of more than 173,000 VC-backed founders, according to Pitchbook.
The full Princeton Review and Entrepreneurship Magazine rankings and methodology can be found at this link.
About Invent Penn State
Invent Penn State is a commonwealth-wide initiative to spur economic development, job creation and student career success. Invent Penn State blends entrepreneurship-focused academic programs, business startup training and incubation, funding for commercialization, and university/community/industry collaborations to facilitate the challenging process of turning research discoveries into valuable products and services that can benefit Pennsylvanians and humankind.
This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Community & Economic Development.