The University of Utah’s Eccles School of Business ranks No. 1 in the West for undergraduate and No. 2 for graduate entrepreneurship in Princeton Review’s 2027 list, placing it No. 15 and No. 8 overall. It also ranks in U.S. News & World Report and Bloomberg Businessweek entrepreneurship lists.
Salt Lake City, Utah — November 12, 2026
The University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business moved up a spot in both categories of this year’s Princeton Review entrepreneurship rankings. It is now No. 1 in the West for undergraduate programs and No. 2 in the West for graduate programs.
Overall, the school placed No. 15 for undergraduate entrepreneurship, up from No. 22 last year and No. 24 the year before. Its graduate program placed No. 8, up from No. 10 and No. 11. UCLA took the top graduate spot in the West. TechBuzz reported last year that Utah ranked No. 2 undergraduate and No. 3 graduate in the West.
The rankings come from a survey of about 300 schools that The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine conducted in summer 2026. The survey asked about academic offerings, faculty, experiential learning, mentorship and alumni ventures. Only schools that take part in the survey are eligible.
The reported numbers rose for the U of U in both categories.
For scale, the University of Houston, No. 1 for undergraduates for the eighth straight year, reported 1,495 startups over the same period.
“We have built a place where entrepreneurship is open to every student,” said Kurt Dirks, dean of the Eccles School. Lyda Bigelow, chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship & Strategy, said students learn to evaluate opportunities, test assumptions and act on the results, whether they launch a company or innovate inside an established one.
The programs are a partnership between that department and the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. Undergraduates can take electives or pursue a minor or major in entrepreneurship. Lassonde Founders is a residential community that offers scholarships to student entrepreneurs. Students can also live at Lassonde Studios, a five-story building at the center of campus with an innovation space on the first floor and dorms above.
“A student moves into Lassonde Studios with a rough idea and finds a community of peers, mentors and founders to build it with,” said Scott Holley, the institute’s executive director. “Together, they test it and either launch or walk away knowing why.”
Graduate students can pursue an MBA with an entrepreneurship emphasis or the Master of Business Creation (MBC), launched in 2019. MBC is offered in person over two semesters or online over three, with an MBC Global option for founders in eligible international locations. Applications are open for spring and fall 2027 to University of Utah alumni from any major.
Other rankings point the same direction, though not identically. The Eccles School also placed No. 4 among U.S. programs in the entrepreneurship component of Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2026-27 full-time MBA ranking.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Utah No. 9 for undergraduate entrepreneurship in its 2027 Best Colleges edition, compared with No. 8 in the 2026 edition. The No. 8 figure still displayed on Lassonde’s rankings page refers to that earlier edition. In U.S. News’s separate 2026 graduate entrepreneurship ranking, Utah tied for No. 10 overall, with the university reporting a No. 3 position among public schools.
Utah placed No. 15 overall for undergraduate entrepreneurship, up from No. 22 in the 2026 edition and No. 24 in 2025. Its graduate entrepreneurship program ranked No. 8 overall, compared with No. 10 and No. 11 in those editions.
The lists include international institutions. For example, the 2027 undergraduate list includes Tecnológico de Monterrey and Erasmus University Rotterdam ahead of Utah. The graduate list includes Rotterdam School of Management ahead of Utah. Consequently, No. 15 and No. 8 are overall positions in the published lists, not strictly U.S. national positions.
Rankings like these matter to universities because prospective students, donors, employers, and partners use them as a quick signal of quality. For a program that markets itself on hands-on learning, a top-tier ranking can help with recruiting students and faculty and with attracting mentors, sponsors and startup support. They also give a school a benchmark year over year. Utah’s higher positions mark an improvement in its standing on this survey-based list. Because rankings use different methods and participant pools, they are best considered alongside information about curriculum, costs and student outcomes.
Learn more at eccles.utah.edu/entrepreneur and eccles.utah.edu.
