By, Gabriella Farrugia

For a growing number of graduates, the first job is one they create for themselves. AI is changing graduate hiring, and employers are cutting the junior roles that were once the first rung of a corporate career. In response, more young people are deciding to build something of their own.

At Harvard Business School, 17% of the class of 2025 planned to start a business. That is the highest share on record, up from 8% in 2021. Beyond the MBA, ZipRecruiter’s 2026 Graduate Report found that 38% of recent graduates were considering launching a venture. The same AI tools that are shrinking the graduate job market have also made it cheaper and faster than ever to test an idea, build a product and win a first customer.

That gives new urgency to an old question. Are founders born, or can entrepreneurship be taught? Are founders born, or can entrepreneurship be taught? A handful of schools, from Babson College and Tetr College to Estonian Business School and Minerva Project, are putting very different answers to the test.

Can entrepreneurship be taught?

A recent article includes research from Professor Victor Pérez on entrepreneurial cognitive enhancement in a ‘brain-driven’ era of entrepreneurship education. Writing in The Conversation, Professor Victor Pérez at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University argues that entrepreneurship is a skill that can be learned, and that the right education can sharpen how founders think and decide. Pérez believes you can quite literally learn the skill of being an entrepreneur.

In comparison, Nicolas Klotz from AI Akhawayn University argues it’s the responsibility of institutions to help develop this: “It’s about nurturing a mindset that values initiative, problem-solving, resilience and creative risk-taking.”

Academics have spent many years debating if entrepreneurship can be learnt, and the effectiveness of studying it. In ‘Beyond entrepreneurship education’, Kasper M. Arendt and fellow researchers studied 4,717 graduates from 35 different programmes at a Danish business school. They found that competence-based teaching made graduates more likely to start their own businesses in the long term.

Competence-based teaching, now commonly referred to as experiential learning, is becoming an increasingly popular way of fostering entrepreneurialism within students. This further raises the question as to whether it is something that can be taught successfully.

Moreover, a desire to study entrepreneurship is on the rise.

In the latest GMAC Prospective Students Survey, it found that interest in entrepreneurship as a career aspiration amongst prospective graduate management education students has grown, increasing from 25% in 2016 to 31% in 2025. Similarly, research from Vlerick Business School found that around half of students in higher education want to start their own business one day.

So, with interest in entrepreneurship on the rise, how can business schools best prepare students for the realities of starting a business? And is this something that can really be taught?

Whilst there is no single answer to this question, a number of business schools are exploring different ways to teach entrepreneurship and encourage students to launch businesses whilst still studying.

IIM Indore And Adam Smith Business School

A global understanding of business is increasingly seen as an important part of being a successful entrepreneur.

The Indian Institute of Management Indore has launched the Global Leadership Development Programme (GLDP) for Entrepreneurs, in partnership with the Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow.

This cross-border academic partnership is a commitment to providing globally relevant learning experiences to students. Dr. Xiang Li, Director of Internationalization at Adam Smith Business School, describes how “Cross-border academic partnerships play an important role in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.”

The current cohort comprises fifteen Indian entrepreneurs, who will be taught by leading faculty from both India and the United Kingdom, offering exposure to global perspectives.

Entrepreneurial success is no longer viewed solely through a Westernised lens. Instead, there is a rise in focus on supporting students from emerging markets, and added value to the insights they can offer.

Tetr College of Business

Tetr College of Business, founded by entrepreneur and educator Pratham Mittal, completely immerses its students into a variety of cultures.

Their core motto is ‘Learn Business by Doing Business’. Over the academic year, students travel across seven different countries, including Dubai and China, curating a global network of business connections, and developing their own alongside.

Experiential learning is very much at the core of Tetr’s teaching philosophy. In a recent interview with EFMD, Mittal explains how “A business degree should leave you with more than an understanding of how business works. It should give you the confidence and capability to make it work.”

Impressively, 90% of first-year students are already running businesses which are making profit. This includes 20-year-old Marta Bernardino, who has over a decade of robotics experience. She has used her Bachelors in Business Management and Technology to develop ‘Trovador’, which describes itself as the world’s ‘first’ autonomous, all-terrain, tree-planting robot, seeking to aid reforestation.

With experiential learning clearly benefitting students so much, this raises a big question around the efficacy of more traditional learning models. Interestingly, though, Mittal believes that theory and practical learning should go together, “Theory gives students the frameworks to think critically; experience forces them to test those frameworks against reality.”

Estonian Business School

At Estonian Business School (EBS), courses focus on developing what Andreas Veispak, Head of Research, Innovation and Development, describes as ‘entrepreneurial thinking’.

In a Poets&Quants article exploring how different business schools teach entrepreneurship, Veispak explains “The question for business schools is no longer whether students will become entrepreneurs… The question is whether they will develop entrepreneurial thinking.”

EBS place great focus on supporting start-up businesses and were ranked in the 2026 Redstone University Startup Index as number one for start-up creation efficiency. Estonia comes from a start-up culture itself, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This forced the country to create their own corporate connections, starting from the ground up.

EBS encapsulates this start-up spirit through its connections with various accelerators. Most notably, the school has helped launch ‘Too Early Ventures’, a venture studio which works with ideas at their earliest stage. It is designed to help ‘close the gap’ between innovative ideas and a lack of funding.

Too Early is working with around ten ideas, with just under half of those connected to EBS students. In 2027, it will move into the new Eedu Education and Entrepreneurship Campus.

Babson College

Nurturing ‘Entrepreneurial thinking’ is essential to the reputation and success of students at Babson College, the number one school in undergraduate entrepreneurship.

Babson College believe that entrepreneurial success is driven by mindset. The school state that “No one is born with an entrepreneurial gene. Anyone can practice and develop entrepreneurial competencies and skills.”

Babson’s teachings are rooted in three action steps, trademarked as ‘Entrepreneurial Thought & Action®’.

Firstly, students must reflect on what they already know, and how they can use past experiences to inform their next steps. Secondly, rather than asking how much they want to make, students should ask how much they are willing to put on the line. And, finally, students should seek advice and feedback from colleagues.

Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® is infused throughout courses and positioned as Babson’s secret key to entrepreneurial success. Impressively, 97.8% are employed, continue education, or in service within six months.

The Minerva Project

Whilst not a business school as such, Minerva University, founded by entrepreneur Ben Nelson in 2011, incorporates similar focuses on experiential learning and mindset.

Minerva’s approach, which today has evolved with the Minerva University System set to establish a global network of new institutions that will operate it’s educational model, focuses on installing ‘critical wisdom’ into students. This is developed from findings from cognitive and behavioural science and is centred around encouraging independent and analytical thinking.

In a world where AI is becoming more advanced, Nelson views this as particularly important. People need, he shares, to be taught to think independently, analyse information for accuracy and address problems creatively, then generate their own conclusions to harness the promise of AI models and agents.

In an interview with Authority Magazine, he states that “Now is the time to build capacity in humans, to impart the skills needed for success in our society.”

This approach has clear success rates, with graduates going on to achieve entrepreneurship rates 24 times higher than those of Stanford graduates.

Is Studying Entrepreneurship Enough?

So, can entrepreneurial success really be taught? To an extent, yes.

By placing greater emphasis on practical experience, business schools are equipping students with the skills needed to turn their ideas into businesses. Increasingly, schools are also becoming launchpads for new ventures.

Experiential learning gives students valuable opportunities to put entrepreneurial principles into practice, build networks, and gain first-hand experience.

That being said, there is still an important place for theoretical learning. As Mittal explains, the most effective approach combines practical experience with theoretical understanding. This shows that there is no universal model for teaching entrepreneurship.

Mindset is also clearly important. Schools are increasingly focusing on developing students’ attitudes, independent thinking and ability to recognise opportunities, rather than simply equipping them with the technical knowledge to run a business.

But having the skills to start a business and having the desire to do so are two different things. Often, entrepreneurship is driven by a desire to make a difference or solve an existing issue.

Perhaps, then, it’s time to move beyond asking how entrepreneurship is taught, or whether it can be learnt, and instead focus on what people can achieve when they put those skills into practice. Institutions offer students the chance to put their ideas into reality, network with other students, and foster a belief in themselves and their aspirations.

Ultimately, the value of entrepreneurship education lies not just in the businesses it helps establish, but in the ideas and innovation it inspires.

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