Princeton Review ranks Freeman 14th nationally for entrepreneurship

For the sixth consecutive year, Tulane University’s A. B. Freeman School of Business has been recognized as one of the top 25 schools in the country for graduate entrepreneurship education.

The Princeton Review ranks the Freeman School 14th on its new list of the nation’s top graduate programs for entrepreneurs. The ranking appears in the October 2011 issue of Entrepreneur magazine, which hit newsstands on Sept. 20, and can be viewed online at www.entrepreneur.com/topcolleges and www.princetonreview.com/entrepreneur.

“We are delighted to again be recognized as one of the nation’s leading schools for entrepreneurs,” said Ira Solomon, dean of the Freeman School. “New Orleans has earned national headlines in recent years for its remarkable entrepreneurial resurgence. The Freeman School is proud to play a part in that rebirth.”

Fueled by a post-Hurricane Katrina wave of business students eager to participate in the revitalization of New Orleans, the Freeman School has in the last decade established a national reputation for social entrepreneurship. More recently, the Freeman School has become a leader in promoting conscious capitalism, a broader concept that calls for organizations to consider the best interests of all stakeholders—including employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders and community members—rather than focusing solely on shareholder returns. The Tulane Business Plan Competition, an annual presentation of the Tulane Entrepreneurs Association, is the only business plan competition in the nation dedicated to the principles of conscious capitalism.

“This outstanding ranking is a reflection of all the alumni, students, faculty, staff and entrepreneurs who have worked together to make it possible,” said John Elstrott, clinical professor of entrepreneurship and executive director of the Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship. “By devoting our passion and creativity to raising the level of entrepreneurship education at the Freeman School, we hope to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs and social innovators across the university and in the community.”

The Princeton Review surveyed more than 2,000 business schools for this year’s ranking. Each program was evaluated based on key criteria in the areas of teaching entrepreneurship business fundamentals in the classroom, staffing departments with successful entrepreneurs, excellence in mentorship, and providing experiential learning or entrepreneurial opportunities outside of the classroom as well as for non-traditional, distinguishable aspects of their programs.

The Freeman School of Business at Tulane, originally the College of Commerce and Business Administration, was established in 1914 and is a founding member of AACSB, the premier accrediting body for collegiate schools of business. Today, Freeman is a leading, internationally recognized business school with more than 2,000 students in programs spanning three continents. The Freeman School is consistently listed among the nation’s best business schools by publications including U.S. News & World Report, Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Financial Times and AméricaEconomía.