Rice University and the University of Houston share the accolades of recent entrepreneurship program rankings. Photo via Rice.edu

Rice University and the University of Houston have once again scooped up accolades for their entrepreneurship programs.

For the fifth consecutive year, Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked the No. 1 graduate entrepreneurship program by The Princeton Review, a provider of education services, and Entrepreneur magazine.

“Our close ties to Houston as well as national startup ecosystems give our students unique opportunities to pitch to and connect with angel investors, venture capitalists and corporations,” Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance, says in a news release. “These connections allow for mentorship, as well as launch points for new ideas, not only for our students but also for the city and surrounding communities.”

The list identifies 50 undergraduate and 50 graduate programs that boast the best entrepreneurship offerings based on factors such as coursework, experiential learning opportunities, and career outcomes. The ranking measures more than 40 data points about the schools’ entrepreneurship programs, faculties, students, and alumni.

Also for the fifth consecutive year, the University of Houston’s Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship in the C.T. Bauer College of Business has been named the No. 1 undergraduate entrepreneurship program by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine.

“We believe in entrepreneurship, we believe in free enterprise, and we’re in the number one city for entrepreneurship,” Dave Cook, executive director of the Wolff Center, says in a news release.

“When we put students into this entrepreneurial mix,” he adds, “and we introduce and reinforce free enterprise values, our intent is to change students’ lives and to create the next generation of business leaders with the highest integrity who are going to go out and create their own cultures, their own companies and their own futures.”

The University of Texas at Austin is the only other school in the state to make the top 10 of either the graduate ranking or undergraduate ranking. UT captures the No. 6 spot on the graduate list and No. 2 spot on the undergraduate list.

Aside from The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur honor, Rice climbed four spots in Poets&Quants’ annual ranking of the world’s best MBA programs for entrepreneurship.

Last year, Rice’s graduate school for business landed at No. 7 on the list. This year, it rose to No. 3, behind the first-ranked Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and second-ranked ESTM Berlin.

This is the fifth annual ranking of MBA programs for entrepreneurship from Poets&Quants, a website that focuses on graduate-level business education.

“MBA programs are increasingly sought after in today’s environment, and our focus on entrepreneurship sets us apart,” Peter Rodriguez, business dean at Rice, says in a news release. “The entrepreneurship classes emphasize a combination of mindset and skill set and focus on multiple stages of the entrepreneurial process, preparing our students for any industry and climate.”

Poets&Quants relies on 16 data points collected through an annual survey to come up with its ranking. Among those data points are:

  • Average percentage of MBA students launching businesses during their program or within three months of graduation between 2018 and 2022.
  • Percentage of MBA elective courses with all of the curriculum focused on entrepreneurship or innovation during the 2022-23 academic year.
  • Percentage of MBA students active in the business school’s main student-run entrepreneurship club during the 2022-23 academic year.
  • Square footage of incubator or accelerator space available to MBA students during the 2022-23 academic year.
Known as the Wayne B. Duddlesten Free Enterprise Institute, the new program will operate in association with the UH Bauer College’s Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship and be open to all UH students. Photo via bauerticker.uh.edu

$5M grant expands entrepreneurship opportunities at UH

coming soon

A $5 million gift from the Wayne Duddlesten Foundation will establish expanded opportunities for entrepreneurship at the University of Houston, according to an announcement from the college earlier this month.

Known as the Wayne B. Duddlesten Free Enterprise Institute, the new program will operate in association with the UH Bauer College’s Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship and be open to all UH students. It's expected to launch in 2024.

UH staff from the Duddlesten Institute and the Wolff Center will be able match budding entrepreneurs across campus with mentors, offer website-building resources, provide legal services and other tools.

"Our goal is to empower imaginative thinkers from idea to market," Paul A. Pavlou, dean of the Bauer College of Business and Cullen Distinguished Chair Professor, said in a statement. "We will support the process from a concept to incubation and continue offering necessary resources all the way to launching a successful new business.”

Dave Cook, executive director of the Wolff Center, said the new institute will create a new type of "synergy across campus."

"It will help create a fabric of innovation, talent, financial, legal and technical service along with a commitment to long held values of the importance of character and integrity as businesses are created," Cook said. "We are honored to share this vision through this collaboration.”

Duddlesten has been a longtime supporter of the university. The successful real estate developer, who's credited for bringing the Rockets to Houston in the '70s, was a Houston native and UH graduate.

His foundation donated $5 million to establish an endowed scholarship at Bauer for students studying entrepreneurship or real estate in 2020. It also established an endowed Tier One Scholarship and endowed scholarship in the Graduate College of Social Work, as well as 25 one-time scholarships for Wolff Center students over the years.

Duddlesten also served as a trustee emeritus and advisory board member for the UH Foundation and the UH System Development Board before his death in 2010.


Earlier this academic year, Rice University also unveiled a new facility dedicated to Ralph O'Connor, former president and CEO of the Highland Oil Company and founder of Ralph S. O’Connor & Associates. The $152 million, state-of-the-art facility features five floors of labs, classrooms and seminar rooms, and is Rice's largest core campus research facility. Click here to read more.
UH's business school just received its second largest gift ever. Photo courtesy of University of Houston

University of Houston receives historic $13M gift for its entrepreneurship program

Money moves

University of Houston's C.T. Bauer College of Business has received its second largest donation to benefit its entrepreneurship program.

The Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, which was recently ranked the top undergraduate entrepreneurship program in the country, received the $13 million gift from its namesake foundation — The Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Family Foundation — and the state of Texas is expected to match an additional $2 million, bringing the total impact to $15 million.

"Our family is deeply committed to the ideals of entrepreneurship," says Cyvia Wolff in a news release. "Our business personified everything that it means to be an entrepreneur. The skills, the thinking, the mindset are fundamental to success for business leaders today and in the future. On behalf of my late husband, we are truly honored to ensure the entrepreneurial legacy not only endures but remains accessible for students. We are truly honored to be part of this program and university."

The money will be used to create three endowments for the program. The Dave Cook Leadership Endowment, named for the center's director, Dave Cook, will be created and funded with $7 million of the donation to support leadership within the organization. For $4 million, the center will create the Wolff Legacy Endowment, which aims to increase students involved in the center, as well as the companies coming out of the program. The last $2 million will be used to create the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Endowed Chair(s)/Professorship(s) in Entrepreneurship. This initiative will support research and community outreach.

"We are passionate about entrepreneurship and how it can forever change students' lives," says Bauer Dean Paul A. Pavlou in the release. "We seek to further promote entrepreneurship as a university-wide, even citywide effort, by collaborating within and across the university in a multitude of areas, such as technology, health care, arts and sports."

The program was created in the mid '90s and was later renamed after Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff in 2007, and has seen great success over the past decade. In that time, Wolff students have created 1,270 businesses, with identified funding of just over $268 million. According to the release, the program has been ranked in the top two spots of the Princeton Review's top undergraduate entrepreneurship programs for nine of the past 12 years.

"Entrepreneurship is crucial for the future of our country, as well as our city and state," says UH President Renu Khator in the release. "We are proud to be at the forefront of work around entrepreneurial training and research. The uniqueness of our program has and continues to make it the model program. This extraordinary gift ensures our leadership in this space will continue and will support the creation of businesses, change communities and impact our students' lives."

At UH, 2,500 students take at least one entrepreneurship course a year, and more than 700 students complete certificate programs.

"What we are doing is transformative in the lives of students, mentors and stakeholders in a way that elevates everyone towards excellence," Cook, who was named the director of the program in 2017, says in the release. "The impact of this gift allows us to remain the leader and to move forward with confidence, purpose and permanence."

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Mark Cuban calls AI ‘the greater democratizer’ for young entrepreneurs

eyes on AI

Texas billionaire Mark Cuban—whose investment portfolio includes Houston-based Holliball, a startup that makes and sells large inflatable holiday ornaments—believes AI is leveling the playing field for budding low-income entrepreneurs.

At the recent Clover x Shark Tank Summit in Las Vegas, the Shark Tank alum called AI “the greater democratizer.”

Cuban told Axios that free and low-cost AI tools enable disadvantaged teenagers to compete with seasoned professionals.

“Right now, if you’re a 14- to 18-year-old and you’re in not-so-good circumstances, you have access to the best professors and the best consultants,” Cuban said. “It allows people who otherwise would not have access to any resources to have access to the best resources in real time. You can compete with anybody.”

While Cuban believes AI is “the great democratizer” for low-income young people, low-income workers still face hurdles in navigating the AI landscape, according to Public Works Partners, an urban planning and consulting firm. The firm says access to AI among low-income workers may be limited due to cost, insufficient digital literacy and infrastructure gaps.

“Without adequate resources and training, these workers may struggle to adapt to AI-driven workplaces or access the educational opportunities necessary to acquire new skills,” Public Works Partners said.

Texas 2036, a public policy organization focused on the state’s future, reported in January AI jobs in Texas are projected to grow 27 percent over the next decade. The number 2036 refers to the year when Texas will celebrate its bicentennial.

As for the current state of AI, Cuban said he doesn’t think the economy is witnessing an AI bubble comparable to the dot-com bubble, which lasted from 1998 to 2000.

“The difference is, the improvement in technology basically slowed to a trickle,” Cuban said of the dot-com era. “We’re nowhere near the improvement in technology slowing to a trickle in AI.”

CPRIT hires MD Anderson official as chief cancer prevention officer

new hire

The Austin-based Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, which provides funding for cancer research across the state, has hired Ruth Rechis as its chief prevention officer. She comes to CPRIT from Houston’s University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she led the Cancer Prevention and Control Platform.

Before joining MD Anderson, Rechis was a member of the executive leadership team at the Livestrong Foundation, an Austin-based nonprofit that supports people affected by cancer.

“Ruth has widespread connections throughout the cancer prevention community, both in Texas and across the nation,” CPRIT CEO Kristen Doyle said in a news release. “She is a long-term passionate supporter of CPRIT, and she is very familiar with our process, programs, and commitment to transparency. Ruth is a terrific addition to the team here at CPRIT.”

Rechis said that by collaborating with researchers, policymakers, public health leaders and community partners, CPRIT “can continue to drive forward proven prevention strategies that improve health outcomes, lower long-term costs, and create healthier futures for all.”

At MD Anderson, Rechis and her team worked with more than 100 organizations in Texas to bolster cancer prevention initiatives at clinics and community-based organizations.

Rechis is a longtime survivor of Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the lymph nodes, which are part of a person’s immune system.