UW Entrepreneurship Ranked #1 in West Region

The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine ranked the University of Washington as the top college in the West for entrepreneurship in the 2023 undergraduate rankings. UW was also ranked number two overall in the West region in the 2023 rankings of graduate programs. Nationally, UW ranked #13 on the undergraduate side—a jump of 13 spots from 2022—and for the third year in a row, ranked in the top 10 overall on the graduate side at number eight.

“There is a powerful commitment to innovation in every corner of the University that sets us apart in the Pacific Northwest and across the country,” said Amy Sallin, director of the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship in the Foster School of Business. “We’re proud to work alongside our partners across UW and the greater Seattle ecosystem to deliver entrepreneurial experiences that bring the community and students together to foster a better future for us all.”

The 2023 Princeton Review rankings represent the second-highest mark for UW undergraduate programs in entrepreneurship over the past decade. The rankings methodology focuses on responses to a 60+ question survey sent to more than 300 colleges offering entrepreneurship studies nationwide. The survey looks at the opportunities for aspiring student entrepreneurs including the quality and quantity of courses, faculty, and mentors, as well as startup creation and follow-on fundraising done by alumni.

Over the past ten years, undergraduate alumni launched more than 572 independent ventures and raised over $218 million. During the same timeframe, graduate alumni launched more than 631 ventures and raised over $253 million.

The Buerk Center and UW CoMotion operate as hubs for community, faculty, and student collaboration—working with colleges and departments across the UW Seattle, Tacoma, and Bothell campuses (as well as the Global Innovation Exchange which operates in partnership with China’s Tsinghua University and Microsoft) to connect students to major VC firms, angel investing groups, and entrepreneurs in every industry in the region.

Nationally-Ranked Commitment to Innovation

A commitment to collaboration is part of the UW Innovation Imperative which empowers students and researchers to learn, discover, and build solutions to tomorrow’s challenges. UW features standout programs and departments, including, but not limited to, the Institute for Protein Design, the Clean Energy Institute, the WA Clean Energy Testbeds, UW EarthLab, the Engineering Innovation in Health program, and the WE-REACH Biomedical Entrepreneurship Center, among others.

The Buerk Center hosts three student innovation and startup competitions annually which are open to colleges and universities across the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Alaska—as well as the non-academic Jones + Foster Accelerator program. Since 2010, more than 80% of those who received seed funding from the Accelerator are still in business today.

The UW system offers more proving grounds for innovators and founders through the BECU FinTech Incubator competition, the CoMotion DubPitch and Innovation Gap Fund competitions, the Sound Credit Union FinTech Incubator at UW Tacoma, the GIX Innovation Competition, the DubHacks Collegiate Hackathon, the Lavin Entrepreneurship Program Innovation Studio competition, and the Science and Technology Showcase competition, among others.

Adding to the opportunities across campus for students to start or continue their journey with entrepreneurship, Creative Destruction Lab opened a Seattle location, hosted inside the Foster School of Business. CDL-Seattle benefits from strong partnerships with the Foster School, the College of Engineering, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, and CoMotion—as well as Microsoft, the Washington Research Foundation, Foster Foundation, and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

The Princeton Review rankings are available online and will also be published in the December issue of Entrepreneur Magazine.

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Follow the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship on LinkedIn @uwbuerk

Follow UW CoMotion on LinkedIn @UWComotion

Visit the Buerk Centers website at startup.uw.edu

Visit CoMotion’s website at comotion.uw.edu

Visit the UW Innovation Imperative website