Do everything possible to help studentpreneurs, U-M president says in Forbes

Wednesday, September 8, 2010 | Source: Forbes

We should be doing more, in fact anything possible, to help foster entrepreneurship with our students. That's the message from Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, who is in favor of molding the most malleable section of the population into the job creators of tomorrow.

Excerpt:

Entrepreneurs on today's college campuses are no longer only huddled together at the business school. They are emerging from the hallways in our music schools and our engineering programs. They are coming forward with fresh ideas in architecture and medicine.

The educational programs designed to draw out these innovative thinkers must be welcoming to all students willing to take a risk on what some might call their "crazy ideas."

The late President Ronald Reagan got it right in 1988 when he told students at Moscow State University, "These entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all of the economic growth in the United States."

If he were making that same point today, Reagan might have to address the students more directly. Instead of discussing "these" entrepreneurs he would need to say "you" entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurism is breaking out all over our college campuses. At the University of Michigan we've learned that many of our students are creating opportunities for themselves even before they get to campus. One survey found that as many as 15% of our incoming freshmen had already started businesses.

Read the rest of the story here.