The 2025 World’s Best MBA Programs For Entrepreneurship

Hamid Rafieian already had solid entrepreneurship experience when he enrolled in EDHEC Business School’s Global MBA Class of 2024. He is co-founder and CEO of Karafs, Iran’s leading digital healthcare company. Along with Luna, another digital health startup Rafieian founded, his ventures have attracted more than 8 million users in his country.

But he wanted more international training, exposure, and contacts — the things an MBA can provide. He chose EDHEC’s program based in part on the chance to network with successful entrepreneurs from around the world, while getting support to develop a business plan, go-to-market strategy, and business forecasting for the next venture he is cooking up.

“EDHEC has a huge emphasis on entrepreneurship. I could see it in almost all the courses as well as other events in my program,” Rafieian tells Poets&Quants.

Rafieian is now building a French startup focusing on women’s health, specifically for those going through perimenopause and menopause. His digital services venture aims to connect women with tools to track and manage their symptoms and overall health.

“I had the chance to meet real-world entrepreneurs and mentors and learn from their experiences. EDHEC Entrepreneurs facilitated connecting to VCs and angel investors to better understand funding and acceleration programs in Europe.”

When evaluating MBA programs, he looked at business schools that were highly ranked with high-quality faculty. He wanted an emphasis on entrepreneurship, and EDHEC’s MBA location in the south of France certainly didn’t hurt.

Rafieian chose wisely. EDHEC Business School’s Global MBA this year topped Poets&Quants annual ranking of the World’s Best MBA Programs for Entrepreneurship.

NEW SCHOOL BREAKS FIVE YEAR STREAK

It was an incredibly close ranking result for 2025 – with just over 1 point separating the top three programs in the raw total. EDHEC debuted at No. 1 in its first year to participate in the ranking, beating out Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business with a raw score of 45.76 to 44.69 (out of a total of 100 possible points).

The race for No. 2 was even closer. ASU Carey nudged out Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School by just 0.01 (44.69 to 44.68). Carey rose four spots from last year’s No. 6 finish while Olin dropped 2, from No. 1 to No. 3.

EDHEC’s result ends a remarkable streak from Olin which topped our MBA entrepreneurship ranking for five straight years.

For 2025, EDHEC ranked first or tied for first in three individual categories: Percentage of entrepreneurship and innovation focused MBA electives, ratio of entrepreneurs-in-residence per 2024 MBA graduate, and percent of MBAs who had direct involvement in a startup during the last academic year.

“Entrepreneurship is in EDHEC’s DNA,” says Sandra Richez, EDHEC Global MBA program director.

The French business school with campuses in Lille, Nice, and Paris, was founded in 1906 by four entrepreneurs in order to train a new generation of managers. Today, between 8 and 10% of students in EDHEC’s Global MBA program go on to start business each year.

“This entrepreneurial spirit is still very evident at EDHEC and, more specifically, in the Global MBA program,” Richez says.

TOP 10 ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAMS FOR MBAs

Just 4.95 points separated the top five finishers in our 2025 MBA entrepreneurship ranking.

Following Olin, IE Business School in Spain (42.77) rose three spots to No. 4 while University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business (40.81) held steady at No. 5.

Two schools not previously ranked made their way into the top 10: Edhec and University of Oregon Lundquist College of Business which debuted at No. 6.

Top 10 MBA Programs For Entrepreneurship For 2025
2025 Rank	School	Raw Score	Index Score	2024 Rank	YOY Change
1	EDHEC Business School	45.756	100.000	NR	NA
2	Arizona State University (W. P. Carey)	44.688	97.665	6	4
3	Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	44.678	97.644	1	-2
4	IE Business School	42.768	93.468	7	3
5	University of Michigan (Ross)	40.806	89.182	5	0
6	University of Oregon (Lundquist)	35.281	77.106	NR	NA
7	Esade Business School	35.185	76.896	4	-3
8	ESMT Berlin	34.203	74.751	2	-6
9	University of California-San Diego (Rady)	33.006	72.133	12	3
10	University of Virginia (Darden)	32.587	71.218	19	9

Lundquist’s full-time program offers an innovation and entrepreneurship MBA concentration while the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship has supported student founders since 1989.

According to data provided for our 2025 ranking, some 12% of Lundquist MBAs went to work for a startup within three months of graduation over the last five years, while 8 percent went to work in private equity or venture capital. The school also reported the third highest percentage of MBA electives that are 100% focused on entrepreneurship and/or innovation at 42%.

You can see how every school in the ranking finished in every category in our data dump story here.

METHODOLOGY

This year, 31 schools submitted data for our ranking – three more than last year. 2025’s result also includes four brand new schools: EDHEC Business School and INSEAD in France, University of Oregon (Lundquist), and Johnson Cornell Tech MBA.

P&Q made one significant change to its methodology for last year’s ranking: In previous years, we ranked about 10 schools that did not submit data directly to us. We collected what we could from public websites and other reporting, but these schools were given no points where no reliable data could be found.

That led to rankings where entrepreneurship powerhouses like Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business ranked in the teens and Harvard Business School struggled to crack the top 10. So we decided not to rank those schools, and we’ve stuck with that change for 2025. Each was invited, but they declined to fill our data survey.

Generally, these are large, prestigious programs in the M7 who have a lot of entrepreneurship resources – and a lot of students. Certainly, if you have the background, stats, and personal story to get into Stanford, you’re going to have access to one of the best entrepreneurial ecosystems in the world. It’s why Stanford GBS consistently has the most MBAs on our annual list of the top funded MBA startups.

You’re also going to be among hundreds of other superstars all vying for the same attention.

Our methodology is designed to measure how resources are allocated to individual students. We use percentages and ratios – based on the number of full-time MBA graduates from a given year – to get a sense of what entrepreneurial resources and experiences are like on a per-MBA basis. This tends to favor schools with smaller class sizes where an entrepreneurial dollar or a mentor’s time is more concentrated.

The 31 schools on this ranking are entrepreneurial gems, even as their MBA programs may not typically get as much ink as the prestigious powerhouses.

The 2025 methodology is similar to last year’s. You can read it in full here.

NEXT PAGE: EDHEC’s entrepreneurial ecosystem