TL;DR: Universities can play a valuable role in entrepreneurship by giving students the structure, resources and permission to turn ideas into action, while providing a place to fail and learn along the way.
With the recent release of the 2026 Midwest college rankings, I have been thinking about what actually makes a university valuable to an aspiring entrepreneur. For me, the answer has less to do with what happens in a traditional classroom and more to do with whether students are given opportunities to actually build something.
The timing is personal, too. I recently transitioned from the Indiana Small Business Development Center into a role with IU Innovates, Indiana University's initiative supporting student entrepreneurship. Instead of working with essentially any type of business, I'll now primarily work with student entrepreneurs.
I went through Indiana University's entrepreneurship programming myself as a student, and the time I spent building things left more of a mark on me than all my curriculum-based learning combined. That experience now shapes how I think about what universities in Indiana and across the Midwest can contribute to entrepreneurship.
College: a good place to fail?
For many students, college provides their first real taste of entrepreneurship. That first attempt can be exciting, but also brutal. Building something is vulnerable. You attach pride and excitement to an idea, spend months trying to make it real and then might discover that the customer does not want it, the economics do not work or you simply got something wrong.
That is also part of learning how to be an entrepreneur. To get to a second, third or tenth attempt at building something that works, you first have to make it through attempt number one.
Universities have an opportunity here. They can create a structured, well-resourced environment where students get that first attempt out of their heads and into the real world. To me, that is one of the most valuable forms of education college can provide. You are not learning by acing a test or chasing a perfect score. You are learning by trying something, getting parts of it wrong and figuring out what to do next.
The biggest hurdle: the first move
Most people notice problems in their lives and occasionally think about ways to solve them. Plenty of those thoughts remain just that: thoughts. For some people, that's fine. For others, there is a genuine desire to build something, but no obvious path from idea to action.
Over the last few years, I've heard one phrase again and again: "I don't know where to start." It is a completely fair problem. Do you start by buying a domain? Registering an LLC? Selling a product to your friends? Talking to customers?
What if your idea is considerably more ambitious and you want to build physical rockets and send them into orbit? Where in the universe do you start with that?! Entrepreneurship rarely comes with a clean tutorial, and the uncertainty around that first step can become so paralyzing that the first step never happens.
This is where I think universities have an advantage.
Give students real world homework
College students are accustomed to assignments, deadlines and expectations. Entrepreneurship programs can use that structure to push students towards something entrepreneurship ultimately requires anyway: action.
One of my first assignments as a student entrepreneur was to conduct 20 customer interviews. That meant leaving the classroom, and eventually the campus, to talk with actual people about the problem I wanted to solve. There was no way to complete the assignment by studying entrepreneurship harder. I had to go do it.
The lesson was not that customer interviews are some magic formula for building a company. It was that action came first. I did something, learned from it and then used what I learned to determine the next move. It was evident from the beginning that taking action mattered more than trying to map out every step beforehand.
Universities are particularly well positioned to create those moments because campuses bring together people and resources that can help students move. Faculty can offer subject expertise. Alumni can share experience from building companies. Corporate partners, researchers and other students can become collaborators, customers or simply the person who makes the right introduction.
For universities across the Midwest, I think there is an opportunity in that density of resources. Universities do not have to manufacture entrepreneurial ambition or predict which student will build a successful company. They can focus on making it easier for students with an idea to take the first step, then connect them with the people and resources that can help the next one.
The university's job should not be to remove uncertainty from entrepreneurship, because that is impossible. It should be to give students enough structure and support to move despite it.
Build more people who are willing to start
The success of university entrepreneurship cannot only be measured by how many companies survive or how much money student founders raise (This is precisely what the Midwest College Rankings measure, but no hard feelings Sebastian - Ed).
Some student businesses will work, and plenty will not. I think the more interesting question is what happens to the person when a company fails.Did they learn how to talk to customers? Did they become more comfortable operating without a clear answer? Did they learn that an idea becomes useful only when they do something with it? Most importantly, are they willing to try again?
That is where I think universities can have an impact that extends beyond campus. The Midwest does not benefit only when a student launches a successful company before graduation. It also benefits when students leave college having practiced how to identify problems, test ideas, learn from failure and keep moving when there is no obvious playbook.
If universities can produce more graduates who know how to move from "I have an idea" to "I tried something," they will have taught something useful regardless of whether that first company survives.
They will have taught students how to start.
Sebastian Penix is the Program Manager ar IU Innovates at Indiana University. He was also the founder of Heartland Valley, a platform spotlighting startups and innovation across the Midwest. He helps early-stage founders and entrepreneurial ecosystems move from idea to traction, at the intersection of university innovation, startup support, and community building across the state of Indiana.
