The Rice Business School at Rice University has secured the No. 1 ranking in graduate entrepreneurship education for the seventh year in a row, as named by The Princeton Review in partnership with Entrepreneur magazine. This sustained leadership reflects the school’s enduring commitment to innovation, venture creation and the cultivation of an entrepreneurial environment to build talent.
“Earning this top ranking once is a milestone, but achieving it seven years straight is unprecedented and speaks volumes about our community, our curriculum, our programs, our faculty and our students,” said Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business. “We’re honored to be recognized yet again and remain deeply committed to equipping our graduates, both graduate and undergraduate, with the mindset, skills and networks to launch and grow successful ventures.”
“Innovation isn’t just something we celebrate at Rice when a new ranking comes out,” said Yael Hochberg, head of the Rice Entrepreneurship Initiative and the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) and the Ralph S. O’Connor Professor in Entrepreneurship and Finance. “It’s the standard we hold ourselves to every single day.”
Why Rice Business continues to lead
“It’s an honor that Rice has been recognized consistently as the top school for entrepreneurship,” Hochberg said. “To continue the legacy we’ve created, we need to lean into our entrepreneurial mindset even more to push boundaries, support bold ideas and reinvent what’s possible. Innovation is part of our DNA.”
That commitment to nurturing bold ideas is echoed by Brad Burke, associate vice president for industry and new ventures at Rice’s Office of Innovation and the executive director of Rice Alliance. “At Rice Business, we strive to solve some of the world’s most challenging issues with new ideas and innovative solutions,” Burke said. “Some of those ideas come from our own faculty and students, and some come from student founders on the stage at the Rice Business Plan Competition. These founders walk in with big ideas and walk out ready to change industries, communities and lives. Our responsibility is to keep raising the bar, building an ecosystem where the most determined, imaginative minds can launch what’s next.”
The annual list from The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur identifies the top 50 graduate and undergraduate programs in entrepreneurship in the United States, based on surveys of academic programs and feedback from administrators at more than 300 institutions. This year’s ranking once again reflects Rice Business’ outstanding performance across metrics such as curriculum strength, real-world opportunities, mentorship and outcomes.
“We see this ranking not as a finish line but as a baseline for ongoing innovation,” Rodriguez said. “Our aim is to anticipate the future of entrepreneurship — whether in tech, energy and climate, health care or social enterprise — and ensure our graduate students are leading it.”
For more information about the entrepreneurship offerings at Rice Business, please visit business.rice.edu/entrepreneurship.
The Financial Management Association International (FMA) named Rice Business professor Kerry Back the recipient of its Innovation in Teaching Award, recognizing his creative, transferable, and impactful teaching in finance.
The Virani Undergraduate School of Business at Rice University celebrated its one-year anniversary on October 29, with coffee and breakfast for its students as they made their way to class.
Now in its 26th year, the Rice Business Plan Competition (RBPC) presented by Rice Business has officially opened applications and is calling on the next generation of world-changing graduate student founders to compete on the global stage. This is where tomorrow’s industry leaders get their start.
