DePaul University’s entrepreneurship program has been ranked among the 13 best programs in the country in Entrepreneur Magazine’s annual evaluation of the “Top 100 Entrepreneurial Colleges” published in the May edition of the publication.

DePaul outranked Northwestern, Stanford, Harvard and Notre Dame universities, as well as University of Chicago, University of Michigan, and the Wharton business school, by landing a spot in the first tier of “comprehensive entrepreneurial programs at nationally prominent colleges and universities.”

“We measured more than 60 separate program dimensions, and schools like Arizona, DePaul, Maryland and others have made entrepreneurship their flagship effort,” said David Newton of TechKnowledge Point Corp., which compiled the data for Entrepreneur. “They now have some of the best course offerings, faculty, special initiatives and opportunities for venturing.”

Founded in 1982 at the College of Commerce, DePaul’s entrepreneurship program has grown to encompass 15 undergraduate and graduate courses taught by 10 faculty members. More than 400 students take courses in the program each year. The program was augmented last fall by the creation of DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, through a grant from the Coleman Foundation. The center provides consulting and links to professional services that help student and alumni entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

“The academic coursework and the center’s services round out a fully comprehensive entrepreneurship program that introduces students to business ownership and then helps them establish firms successfully after graduation,” said Raman Chadha, associate director of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, who teaches in the program.

The program’s founder, DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Chair Harold Welsch, said that one of the most valuable aspects of the program are courses that allow student teams to work as marketing and business plan consultants to small businesses and organizations in the Chicago-area. “This real-life entrepreneurial experience helps students gain practical knowledge that they can apply to launching their own business ventures, and it also provides assistance to Chicago’s small business community,” he said. This spring, more than 60 students are working with 20 firms and organizations to tackle business venture issues.

This is the second year that DePaul’s program has been ranked in the first tier by the magazine, which launched the evaluation last year. More than 825 entrepreneurship programs and curricula were researched between September and December of 2003 to produce the latest ranking. The final rankings are based on more than 60 separate criteria, including course offerings; teaching and research faculty; business-community outreach; research centers and institutes; advisory boards; off-campus programs; entrepreneurial initiatives; degrees and certificates offered; tangible venture development; access to capital funding; and faculty and alumni evaluations. The 50 comprehensive entrepreneurship programs offered at institutions with national reputations were grouped into four tiers, with schools listed alphabetically within each tier. The first 13 schools – the top quarter – have comparable offerings and resources, and together represent the top tier of programs in the country. In addition to appearing in the 550,000-circulation magazine, the rankings are posted online as of April 16 at www.entrepreneur.com.

This ranking comes on the heels of DePaul’s part-time MBA program earning a 9th place spot among peer programs nationally in U.S. News & World Report’s annual graduate school rankings published April 12. It was the 10th consecutive year that DePaul’s program was ranked among the top-10 in the part-time MBA category.