Startup Schools: America's Most Entrepreneurial Universities 2014

For the second time, Stanford University out-muscled its East Coast rivals to top the FORBES 2014 most entrepreneurial universities list. Silicon Valley’s reach has extended across California, as the state’s schools took over half of this year’s top ten spots.

FORBES ranked the nation’s most entrepreneurial research universities based on their entrepreneurial ratios – the number of alumni and students who have identified themselves as founders and business owners on LinkedIn LinkedIn against the school’s total student body (undergraduate and graduate combined).

Here are the highlights of the top 20 start-up schools on our list:

1 Stanford University

Its entrepreneurs don’t always wait for degrees. Among its famous dropouts: Google's Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Yahoo’s Jerry Yang and David Filo; and Snapchat’s Evan Spiegel.

2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Its student-run $100K Entrepreneurship Competition has led to the creation of more than 130 companies and 2,500 jobs.

3 University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley has three startup incubators on campus, including SkyDeck, a joint effort of the university’s research office and its business and engineering schools.

4 Cornell University

Founded in 2001, the Cornell Entrepreneur Network has organized hundreds of events for about 20,000 alumni, students, staff, parents and friends (read my colleague Natalie Robehmed’s profile on Cornell).

5 University of California, Los Angeles

State school UCLA hosted 4,000 developers
in April for the second annual LA Hacks hackathon.

6 California Institute of Technology

Caltech boasts 32 alumni and faculty Nobel laureates despite a total student body of fewer than 2,300 in Pasadena.

7 Brown University