By
La Monica Everett-Haynes
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA study finds entrepreneurial students are more successful than business students
Ten years ago, UA alumnus Tom BoBo deliberated with his peers and professors to envision the concept of using digital image analysis for the mining industry.
Born out of the University of Arizona Berger Entrepreneurial Program, the product first became a commercial entity seven years later. Now, it is used all over the world.
BoBo and his colleagues transferred the product - typically used for computer programming - from a one-sided service into a world-wide enterprise, which is also multi-faceted.
In a study conducted last year and released in early August, the university's Karl Eller Center found that entrepreneurial alumni, like BoBo, are wealthier, happier and more enterprising than non-entrepreneurial alumni who graduated from the Eller College of Business and Public Administration.
Karl Eller Center researches studied the Berger Entrepreneurial Program which is part of the UA Eller College of the Business and Public Administration.
The Karl Eller Center surveyed 2,484 of its alumni - dating back to its first graduating class in 1985 - and 460 Berger Entrepreneurship Program graduates in fields like technology programs, farmer implementation services, on-line venues and retail stores.
Of those surveyed, about 21 percent - 511 Eller College alumni and 105 Berger graduates - responded.
The program's alumni was expected to respond about how the program helped develop new ideas, its course work and whether it prepared students for the work force.
The program helped graduates to start more than 80 new businesses, said Gary Libecap, Karl Eller Center director, one of two leading researchers for the survey. Some of the students have moved away from Arizona and are now contracted with corporations.
A pocket-sized, disposable alcohol detector, a water park, consulting services for lawyers and tour services are only a handful of the business plans written in the program.
The entrepreneurial program currently has more than 70 students and about 65 students graduate each year.
Eller College alumni who are new-business owners have stepped into an open arena, reinforced by the Technology Age, where failure for any sort of new, technology-based product is virtually impracticable, said Libecap, who worked with Alberta Charney, UA Business and Public Administration research specialist.
"Some students want to start new restaurants, but the competition is murder," Libecap said. "Technology is where the action is - where the opportunities are."
The main focus of the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, the Missouri organization that provided much of the funding for the survey, is to develop and encourage entrepreneurship education and the research.
The center provided $20,000 of the $30,000 running cost for the survey, while private donors covered the remaining $10,000, Libecap said.
Libecap said both he and Charney hope other institutions will be able to use their study as a template so colleges and universities can determine the success of their entrepreneurial programs.
"They'll find similar results, but it will be interesting to see what they actually find because entrepreneurship is so broad," Libecap said.
He said the entrepreneurial program is "not like technology or accounting - there isn't a standard program," but this survey helps to understand student success despite its complexity.
One potential drawback to entrepreneurship, though, is the potential fear of swift failure because it's nearly impossible to predict the success of a product or service. However, a necessary step to success is realizing this fear, ignoring it, and ultimately focusing on improving the product or service.
"I think it's about having learned the willingness to take the risk and to figure out how to put together the pieces of the product, developing and making it, rather than having somebody else be the driver," said Mark Zupan, the UA Business and Public Administration dean.
BoBo agreed.
"It's a group effort to get things done, but you have a vision and efforts to go in a certain direction," BoBo said. "You also don't have to go through the red tape of corporate levels."
Entrepreneurs make $12,561 to $23,500 more than business students, who tend to enter a corporation or open a franchise, trying to enhance old products because they are risk-takers, Zupan said,
That's something that's not always easy but entrepreneurial students understand and live it, said Sherry Hoskinson, BPA outreach and development associate.
"It's not a hit or miss thing - these guys are really good," Hoskinson said. "They evaluate whether the business will fly, whether the market will accept the product and what they need to make it take place."
