Can Colleges Attract Students With Promises of Early Entrepreneurship? 

Katie Diasti built a foundation for her startup within three months of graduation. By August 2019, the first-time founder had incorporated her nontoxic, sustainable period care brand, found a manufacturer, and secured a $5,000 grant. Today, her company, Viv for Your V, has raised $1.3 million in funding and secured distribution in 2,000 stores nationwide. 

That entrepreneurial journey went through Boston College’s Shea Center for Entrepreneurship. Diasti joined during the spring semester of her senior year, but wishes she got involved even earlier. 

“I don’t even think I really understood what entrepreneurship really was when first coming to BC,” she says. “I would have just gotten confident sooner.”

Now, more BC students are doing just that. Two years after Diasti participated in the Shea Center’s accelerator program, the on-campus organization added another offering exclusively for freshmen. The freshman innovation program accepts around 25 students into yearlong cohorts that meet for weekly workshops, mentorship, and small-group projects. Though students do not earn class credit for the program, “demand has been incredible,” says Kelsey Kinton Renda, senior associate director of the Shea Center.

BC’s aspiring entrepreneurs aren’t alone. Gen-Zers are embracing entrepreneurship early, and the trend gets even stronger in the younger part of the generation. When asked about their plans during their first year after high school, 12 percent of Gen-Z teens and tweens said they wanted to start a business, compared with 2 percent of Gen-Z adults, according to a 2024 report from the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup. 

Now, colleges are trying to tap into that founder fervor, thrusting students into startup life from the moment they step on campus. Before even starting classes, Yale freshmen can participate in Launch, a pre-orientation program focused on impact and entrepreneurship. The five-day camp launched in 2022 and features founder guest speakers, alumni meetups, workshops, and trips to entrepreneurial hubs near New Haven, Connecticut. At the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, first-year students can move in early to join a free, two-day workshop called Freshman Innovation Immersion. The crash course in entrepreneurship includes small group events, a pitch competition with a $500 cash prize, and a dinner boat cruise. 

These investments come at a time when kids have soured on college. Survey after survey of young people has found waning interest in higher education. Nearly half of teenagers do not see themselves attending a four-year or even two-year college, according to a recent survey conducted by the nonprofit American Student Assistance, which polled more than 3,000 students in the seventh through 12th grades.

It’s not difficult to understand why. Tuition prices, which already feel unaffordable to the vast majority of Americans, keep rising. Young people, concerned about the burden of student loan debt, now question whether a degree still delivers a return. In an April survey, nearly one in four college students said their tuition was not a good investment. 

Still, some early entrepreneurship immersion programs have had rocky starts. At one time, Georgetown freshmen could opt to live in an entrepreneurship-themed dorm, but the housing option did not last through the pandemic. Ahead of the 2022-23 school year, the university suspended the entrepreneurship living learning community, blaming a lack of resources as the school dealt with lockdowns and other Covid-19 precautions. 

The University of Texas at Austin, meanwhile, announced a program to introduce freshman founders to the city’s famed startup scene as quickly as possible with mentorship, pitch competitions, and a student-run startup accelerator. The initiative was shut down in the summer of 2022, however, when a student government investigation found that its leaders had spent hundreds of dollars in program funds on tacos.

Still, the benefit of gaining business experience in a low-stakes undergraduate environment often outweighs the risk of fast food embezzlement. “If you fail, it’s fine,” says the Shea Center’s Kinton Renda. “You still wake up and go to your class the next day. It’s not like you’ve lost $10 million.”