Philly Entrepreneurship MBA Programs and Centers
Even though it’s located in the shadow of New York City and on the opposite coast as San Francisco, Philadelphia is still a great city to plant entrepreneurial roots. With plenty of top-notch business schools in or around the City of Brotherly Love, MBAs in the region have every opportunity to reach start-up success.
In the Philadelphia metro, a number of business schools have dedicated research and resource centers made specifically for students wanting to learn more about entrepreneurship. How do Philly business schools support their budding entrepreneurs? Check out the list below to learn more.
Fox School of Business – Temple University
The Fox School of Business began offering an MBA degree in 1942. Today, Fox business students have several MBA options, including: the Global (full-time) MBA, part-time MBA, Executive MBA, Online MBA and joint JD/MBA.
The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine rank the Entrepreneurship programs at Fox highly, as both the the undergraduate and graduate programs earned top-10 rankings for the second straight year. The undergraduate program earned the 8th overall spot while the graduate program placed 9th.
Temple is also home to the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute (IEI), which promotes an entrepreneurial spirit throughout all 17 schools and colleges of the North Philly university. According to the IEI website, the Institute emphasizes,
Integrated, applied, hands-on learning, bringing together students, entrepreneurs, mentors, alumni, faculty, staff, and business advisors from diverse backgrounds to work on real-time projects and new ventures.
Haub School of Business – Saint Joseph’s University
St. Joseph’s Haub School of Business (HSB) was established in 1979 as a Jesuit institution. HSB is the largest Jesuit business school in the country, with over 3,400 enrolled students and more than 22,000 alumni. Haub features an assortment of MBA options: traditional full-time or part-time MBA programs for working professionals, four EMBA degree options and an online MBA.
In 2013, Haub’s online MBA program launched a new concentration in Family Business & Entrepreneurship, offering business insights targeted specifically to this subgroup of small business owners. St. Joe’s is also home to The Initiative for Family Business & Entrepreneurship. According to the school, the Initiative provides entrepreneurial families the support, guidance and tools necessary to increase long-term competitiveness, ownership prosperity and family unity.
La Salle University
The School of Business at La Salle University was founded in 1954 and features four degree-earning options: the full-time MBA, an accelerated One-Year MBA, a Saturday MBA and a flexible part-time MBA that holds classes in the evenings, on weekends and in a distance learning format.
La Salle is home to the La Salle Center for Entrepreneurship (LCE). According to the Center’s webpage, LCE helps budding entrepreneurs by:
- Providing the academic, instructional, and educational opportunities for incorporating entrepreneurship into your studies, either through a minor or individual classes or extracurricular activities.
- Fostering opportunities for students, alumni, and faculty to interact with the business community.
- Tapping into the alumni network for student mentoring as well as to support alumni entrepreneurial activities.
LeBow College of Business – Drexel University
LeBow offers a number of MBA programs, including: a one-year full-time MBA, part-time evening accelerated MBA programs that may be completed either in person or online in the course of two years, a two-year online MBA in Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Management and an Executive MBA (EMBA). Students may also complete a part-time degree at their own pace.
Drexel offers an MBA concentration in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management. The concentration requires students take seven core courses and two additional electives. Core classes in the concentration include Legal Issues in New Ventures, Entrepreneurial Finance, New Product Plan Strategy & Development and Mergers and Acquisitions.
Lehigh University College of Business and Economics
The Lehigh University College of Business and Economics offers more than a dozen graduate courses annually in entrepreneurship and social ventures at the Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship. It also features various programs that promote entrepreneurial thinking, such as VENTURESeries: an executive certificate program and MBA track that features modules on developing a business plan; intellectual property; entrepreneurial marketing; assessing market potential and valuation; financing seed stage companies; venture capital; pro formas; IPOs and exit strategies; new venture organization and management; and creating production and delivery infrastructure.
Another program is LehighSiliconValley. This January-term immersion program in California’s Silicon Valley is also offered to graduate students in any discipline.
Rohrer College of Business – Rowan University
Located just outside of Philadelphia in South Jersey, Rowan University promotes an Entrepreneurship Across the Campus initiative that encourages and support students, faculty, staff and the region’s business community by providing mentoring, networking, consulting and access to financial resources in support of their ventures. The Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship stands at the center of this initiative.
The Center is home to the Hatch House: a growing network of university-affiliated startup incubators which provide venture consulting, mentor pairing, a co-working space, and hands-on help to students in order to accelerate their understanding of starting and growing a company.
The Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania
Founded in 1881, Wharton was the first dedicated school of business at the college level in the United States. Today, the school enrolls 1,788 total students in its MBA program and 436 students in the MBA Program for Executives. Being one of the top — if not the top — business schools in the country, Wharton has plenty to offer to entrepreneurs.
The Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship awards more than $500,000 to entrepreneurial students each year and has a roster of 51 start-ups in its incubator program. Wharton also boasts one of the largest entrepreneurial teaching programs, the Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Program, which offers more than 30 courses across seven disciplines to thousands of students and entrepreneurs each year.
About the Author
Max Pulcini
Max Pulcini is a Philadelphia-based writer and reporter. He has an affinity for Philly sports teams, Super Smash Bros. and cured meats and cheeses. Max has written for Philadelphia-based publications such as Spirit News, Philadelphia City Paper, and Billy Penn, as well as national news outlets like The Daily Beast.
