BY Sydney LakeJanuary 12, 2023, 2:46 PM
A “Now Open” signal outdoors a industrial tent at a parking zone in Huntington Park, California, as seen in March 2021. (Photographer: Jessica Pons—Bloomberg/Getty Photos)
Within the yr after the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. noticed an entrepreneurship resurgence. Greater than 5.4 million folks filed enterprise purposes in 2021, a 20% software enhance from 2020, in response to U.S. Census Bureau knowledge. Knowledge for 2022 isn’t but full, however between January and November, 4.65 million purposes have been submitted, suggesting a decline in enterprise formation final yr.
Whereas hundreds of thousands of individuals got down to turn into an entrepreneur yearly, it’s no small or simple activity. That’s why, since 2015, Santa Clara College has provided a free on-line entrepreneurship course for folks seeking to begin their very own enterprise, create jobs, and develop financial development. Fortune ranks Santa Clara having high enterprise faculty applications throughout varied codecs.
Though it’s not a alternative for an on-line MBA or different enterprise administration levels, My Personal Enterprise Institute (MOBI) is a self-paced course that focuses on enterprise fundamentals for folks with quite a lot of instructional backgrounds and assets, program govt director Andrew Starbird tells Fortune. Simply final yr, the varsity issued 2,200 certificates to college students in additional than 100 international locations, he says.
“No matter schooling, expertise, or monetary assets, MOBI supplies the important coaching wanted by an aspiring enterprise proprietor,” Starbird says. “One of many best advantages of this system is that it connects coaching on to the fundamental necessities of beginning a enterprise and supplies college students with instantly actionable expertise to kick-start their companies.”
What you’ll be taught within the free entrepreneurship program and easy methods to get in
Santa Clara’s MOBI program covers the fundamental necessities for beginning a enterprise, together with elevating cash, managing workers, and discovering new clients. The curriculum was developed by employees at Santa Clara’s Leavey Faculty of Enterprise and different entrepreneurs. To begin this system, potential college students simply need to go to this system web site and submit their electronic mail tackle.
There aren’t any conditions for stepping into this system, which means anybody can join. College students vary in age from 20 to 70, are evenly cut up between women and men, and are racially and ethnically numerous, Starbird says.
“I feel that the important thing takeaway is that anybody can be taught the fundamental expertise wanted to begin a enterprise, no matter their background,” he says.
This system classes cowl subjects together with enterprise danger, insurance coverage, and controlling prices—however this system’s hottest subjects are communication instruments and ethics, Starbird says. MOBI gives 4 on-line programs to earn a certificates of completion: Beginning a Enterprise, Enterprise Growth, Fast Begin Entreprenuer, and the Gross sales and Advertising Badge Brief Course.
Why Santa Clara gives this course totally free
This system was created by Phil and Peggy Holland; Phil was an entrepreneur and founding father of chain restaurant Yum Yum Donuts in Southern California, and Peggy was an educator. Motivated by the Los Angeles riots within the early 90s, they determined to assist individuals who have been impacted to begin companies and create jobs, Starbird says.
Additionally on account of its location in Silicon Valley, the Leavey Faculty has a robust give attention to entrepreneurship and gives a number of applications supported by donors, grants, and the endowment to assist communities with restricted assets. MOBI alone works with greater than 75 companions in additional than a dozen international locations to assist aspiring entrepreneurs get the schooling they should begin their very own enterprise—one instance being a partnership with PEPY Empowering Youth in Cambodia to supply coaching of their native language, Khmer.
“MOBI has college students everywhere in the world who begin companies that create jobs and financial development of their neighborhood—wherever they’re,” Starbird says.
Try all of Fortune’s rankings of diploma applications, and be taught extra about particular profession paths.