The Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University is ranked No. 3 in Poets & Quants’ World’s Best MBA Programs for Entrepreneurship rankings for 2022, up from No. 15 on the 2021 list.

Poets & Quants created the annual rankings with Inc. Magazine to measure schools' performance in providing launching pads for entrepreneurial-minded MBA students. Through data collection and analysis, the list ranked 38 schools based on 16 core metrics that reflect not only the resources devoted to entrepreneurship, but also the results of those efforts.

The Rice entrepreneurship ecosystem combines academic courses and co-curricular programs led by the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie) with community and co-curricular programs of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship (Rice Alliance). Student founders begin their entrepreneurial journey in the more than 50 courses and experiential learning labs offered through Lilie.

“The ability to be a student while working on your startup in class, under the expert guidance of our world-class faculty, gives our Rice entrepreneurs a competitive advantage over any others out there,” said Yael Hochberg, head of the Rice Entrepreneurship Initiative and academic director for the Rice Alliance.

Student entrepreneurs further develop their ventures through Lilie’s suite of experiential programs, using resources such as a state-of-the-art coworking space, equity-free funding and mentorship to accelerate their ventures — culminating with the Napier Rice Launch Challenge each spring.

These programs are augmented by the Rice Alliance’s OwlSpark Accelerator, which serves as a capstone program and launchpad for students seeking to start their companies. The Rice Business Plan Competition, the largest and richest intercollegiate student startup competition in the world, provides an opportunity to pitch their startups in front of over 300 judges for more than $1.5 million in prizes. The Rice Alliance Technology Venture Forums provide an opportunity for students to showcase their startups to investors and corporations.

“The ability for students to launch their nascent startups, obtain mentoring from members of the Houston entrepreneurial ecosystem and then pitch to hundreds of angel investors, venture capitalists and corporations provides a unique opportunity that cannot be found on many campuses or in many regions,” said Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance.

“Our mission of creating entrepreneurship programs that are led by experienced founders and investors, underpinned by rigorous research and teaching expertise, is beginning to pay dividends in Lilie’s sixth year as the entrepreneurship center for Rice Business and the campus,” Hochberg said. “It’s increasingly clear that there’s no better time than now to learn and explore entrepreneurship as a student, and no better place than here at Rice Business.”

For more information on Rice Entrepreneurship, visit entrepreneurship.rice.edu or email the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at lilie@rice.edu or Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship at alliance@rice.edu.