For a second year in a row, The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur have placed the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the top 50 schools worldwide with the best undergraduate entrepreneurship programs. UNL has gone up in the rankings from its placement last year, moving from No. 42 to No. 35 globally and from No. 12 to No. 10 in the Midwest. 

“At Nebraska, we don’t just teach entrepreneurship,” University of Nebraska System President Jeffrey Gold said in the announcement from UNL. “We live it through hands-on innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration and a growing network that empowers students to lead boldly in any industry.”

The three leading schools according to the Top 50 Undergraduate Programs for Entrepreneurs in 2026:

1. University of Houston in Houston, Texas
2. University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas
3. Babson College in Babson Park, Massachusetts

Schools received their rankings based on survey data on traits such as what degree paths are available for students, how many students are enrolled and what opportunities are there for students to participate in for mentorship and venture funding. A detailed description of the methodology used by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur is available here. 

Since last year’s submission, Amanda Metcalf, the assistant director of the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship, said in an email to SPN that the demand for entrepreneurship programming at UNL has increased. She pointed to an increase of about 15% in student enrollment in entrepreneurship courses — from 1,569 students last year to 1,808 this year. 

Sam Nelson, director of the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship, said he credited the recent recognition to the “collaborative nature” of the wider Nebraska startup ecosystem and the various programs offered by UNL — such as Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management and Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts. 

“Nebraska entrepreneurs show up — they mentor, coach, judge and open their doors to students — and we don’t take that for granted,” Nelson said in an email to SPN.

Faculty and staff showcasing the entrepreneurial spirit

According to the UNL announcement, many faculty leading its entrepreneurship courses and programs have bought, run or started their own businesses. This provides students experienced perspectives and insights for their respective entrepreneurial journeys. 

Metcalf acknowledged that the percentage of UNL faculty who both teach and have an entrepreneurial background has dropped from 84% last year to 74%. However, she said this was due to an increase in the number of faculty submitted in the data set this year, noting that more faculty members across departments have participated in entrepreneurship-related courses. 

“So it’s not that there was a decline, but rather a rise in faculty teaching courses with entrepreneurship woven into them,” Metcalf said. 

To celebrate the innovative work and startups founded through the research by university faculty, staff and graduate students, NUtech Ventures presented its 2025 Innovator Celebration Awards on Nov. 17. NUtech Ventures is the commercialization office serving UNL and the University of Nebraska at Kearney. 

The 2025 Innovator Celebration Awards winners:

• Prem S. Paul Innovator of the Year: Carrick Detweiler. A professor in the School of Computing at UNL, Detweiler is also the co-founder and CEO at Drone Amplified. The Lincoln-based startup uses drone technology for complex tasks such as controlled burns and wildfire management. 

• Breakthrough Innovation of the Year: Neuromorphic MEMS Sensor Network. Fadi Alsaleem, an associate professor in the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction at UNL, leads the project. The technology uses machine learning with micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) to enable “computing at the sensor level,” Alsaleem said. 

• Startup Company of the Year: A+ Berry. Food scientists Xiaoqing Xie and Changmou Xu co-founded the Lincoln-based company from their research at UNL. A+ Berry seeks to transform the aronia berry industry by improving the taste of the berries and developing health-centered products. 

A full list of winners is available in the NUtech Ventures 2024-2025 annual report. 

Beyond helping students tap into working professional networks, faculty in the midst of scaling their own companies can demonstrate how ideas from the lab can become everyday products, Nelson said. 

“When our faculty can successfully take their research to market, it accelerates that process and moves society forward,” Nelson said. “It’s a direct connection between discovery, application and impact — and our students get to learn from people who are actively doing that work.”

Continuing the momentum

To stay competitive in The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur global rankings, Metcalf said it would take efforts across the entire UNL campus and wider ecosystem. Areas that could increase UNL’s standing, she said, include expanding course offerings, increasing scholarships and prize money pools for competitions and having more community mentors volunteer their time to students. 

A major challenge, Nelson said, is that other universities and their entrepreneurship centers have more funding to support their programs. 

“We’re one of the only entrepreneurship centers in the Big Ten that isn’t a named center with an associated endowment to support cocurricular programming and scholarships,” Nelson said. 

Nelson said he’s greatly appreciative of the impacts made by major donations. Such funding, he said, can go toward efforts to support and attract students to the university. He added that cuts to the Business Innovation Act make it more difficult for the students who take part in UNL programming to launch the ventures they worked on.

Metcalf said increased financial support from the community and state for early ventures beyond graduation would improve the survivability of graduate-founded businesses. In turn, she said, this would raise UNL’s global ranking. 

“The bottom line: The Nebraska community already supports us in remarkable ways through involvement, and we’re truly thankful for that,” Nelson said. “Expanded financial support is what will allow our students and founders to keep competing at the highest levels.”