Gone are the days when students wait four or five years to finish school before thinking seriously about starting a business. A growing number of students are now trying to do both at once, building companies while still attending classes.
Bloomberg, in a recent report, said this event is playing out across US campuses, where “undergraduate entrepreneurship classes once seen as niche electives are now packed, with long waitlists, while on-campus accelerator programs are already at capacity.” For example, a suite of startup incubator programs that drew just 50 applications five years ago at Johns Hopkins University attracted interest from more than 860 students this school year.
One of the biggest drivers is artificial intelligence (AI), which now makes tools that once required large teams, technical expertise, or significant funding, to be tested and built much faster. Students are also using AI to research markets, create prototypes, automate tasks, and launch products earlier than previous generations could.
Jill Tipograph, a career coach who works with students and recent graduates, told Bloomberg that more of her college-age clients are pursuing entrepreneurial side gigs as job opportunities become tougher to land. Even when those projects don’t become full businesses, she said the initiative and resilience required to build something from scratch can stand out to recruiters.
A vivid example is Dhruv Shajikumar, a college student who was still in his first semester at Carnegie Mellon University when he started building an AI platform for consulting firms. By January, the 18-year-old and his co-founders had raised about $500,000 in pre-seed funding, prompting him to take a leave of absence from school, according to Bloomberg.
“Honestly, I was expecting to finish my first year,” he said. But the opportunity moved quickly, with some investors reportedly committing within minutes of meeting him.
At founder-heavy campuses such as Stanford University, professors say the interest in entrepreneurship has long existed. What has changed now is the speed at which students are raising money and turning ideas into companies.
According to Charles Eesley, an engineering professor and co-director of Stanford’s Technology Ventures Program, students once took years to build companies after graduation. Now, some are moving from class projects to multimillion-dollar fundraising rounds in a matter of months.
Ogbonda Chivumnovu
Venture capital firms are increasingly showing up on campuses, sending direct messages to students, hosting events, and backing founders earlier than they once did. Some funds are even building programs specifically designed for student entrepreneurs.
But these early ventures are not without risks. Akeil Smith, who founded a software startup while at Carnegie Mellon, said inexperienced student founders can accept poor terms without fully understanding what they’re giving away. “They’ll take a lot of equity really early on,” he said, describing how some investors use low valuations to secure larger ownership stakes.
Rather than dropping out completely, many students are choosing a middle path by taking temporary leaves of absence. That gives them time to test whether a startup can work without permanently closing the door on their degree.
Some schools are adapting to the trend, reviewing leave policies and expanding support systems for students who want to pause their studies to build companies.
At Rice University, undergraduate enrollment in entrepreneurship courses has more than doubled over the past three years, according to school officials. Applications to its internal startup accelerator have also doubled.
Rice student Ege Halac is among those rethinking his career plans. He entered college intending to become a neurosurgeon, but is now building autonomous drones designed for organ delivery, seeing technology as a faster way to solve larger problems in healthcare.
He also said some of his pre-med friends, after struggling to find research roles needed for medical school applications, started side projects of their own. For many, entrepreneurship became less of a backup plan and more of an exciting alternative.
While not every student founder expects immediate success, many are building companies while still applying for jobs, treating entrepreneurship as both a learning experience and a practical edge in an increasingly competitive job market.
David Adubiina
