Towson University is banking on more students like Anne Marie Rose, a 19-year-old marketing major who started her own company. Rose has big dreams for the jewelry business she launched in her Finksburg home two years ago: To transform Anne Marie Rose Jewelry Designs into a national brand.
Such ambitions are prompting hundreds of colleges and universities such as Towson to focus more energy and resources on teaching the know-hows of becoming an entrepreneur.
Schools are adding more courses and other activities to cultivate the business ideas of budding workers who are increasingly bypassing corporate jobs for their own startups.
Towson's new program starts in the fall, joining many others in establishing minors and majors in an entrepreneurship education boom.
The move to embrace this academic discipline comes as today's college students see the business world differently than past generations. With unprecedented access to technology, students can start a business with much less capital and manpower than ever before.
And after watching their parents lose jobs, pensions and other benefits over the years, many students see going out on their own as offering better opportunities and flexibility - despite the risks.
"They're smart and more educated than any generation, and they're confident," said Vivian Armor, director of the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "[They're saying] `I'm not going to have job security.' They don't want to work for a company for a long time. They like the idea of creating things for themselves and making things fit for them."
Critics, however, argue that some of the most well-known entrepreneurs have learned on the job and by working their way up the ladder. Others question whether education can make up for the lack of what some see as innate qualities such as creativity and independence.
Yet, young people are starting their own ventures even before graduating. Some arrive on campus with thriving businesses. And the popularity of entrepreneurship education comes as startup businesses have become an important facet of the economy's growth.
To meet the need, Towson's College of Business and Economics is offering an entrepreneurship track starting this fall. By the following academic year, officials hope to offer general education courses in personal finance and entrepreneurship, which mean all students must take them to graduate.
