Forbes Features Small Colleges and Entrepreneurship

Liyan Chen's article, "How Liberal Arts Colleges Reinvent Themselves As Startup Factories," was posted on the Forbes website on July 29, 2015.  Entrepreneurial programs at Middlebury College, Colorado College, and Hampshire College are highlighted.  It is great to have small colleges featured in this way and for readers of Forbes to see a tie between liberal arts and entrepreneurship.

There is also a link to a ranked list of the 50 Most Entrepreneurial Colleges.  This ranking was constructed by calculating "...entrepreneurial ratios – the total number of alumni and students who have identified themselves as founders and business owners on LinkedIn, divided by the school’s student body (undergraduate and graduate combined)."  

I quickly pulled the fall 2014 f.t.e. enrollment numbers from IPEDS.  Bennington College with a rank of #4 is the smallest institution with enrollment of 735 and Villanova at #45 is the largest with 8,960 f.t.e.  The mean enrollment for the list was 2,296 f.t.e. and the median f.t.e. was 1,897 students. 

While I can criticize a ranking based on one variable, it is still fun to explore the list a bit further.  Three of the institutions on the Forbes' list are women's colleges, Smith College at #19, Mills College at #22, and Wellesley College at #47.  There is one HBC&U institution, Morehouse College with a rank of #5.  And, Westmont College at #10 is the only member of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCC&U).

I also offer two quick suggestions for others constructing this type of list in the future.   Information on the initial pool of institutions will really be helpful.  Also, please check the list to make sure you tag all institutions where there might be confusion...I have no way of knowing whether the Union College ranked at #31 is located in Kentucky, Nebraska, or New York.