What Can I Do with an Entrepreneurship Degree?

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• An entre­pre­neur­ship degree pre­pares stu­dents to start and run their own busi­ness­es by teach­ing them nec­es­sary busi­ness skills like plan­ning and finance.
• The degree can be pur­sued through var­i­ous edu­ca­tion­al paths includ­ing online, on-cam­pus, and accel­er­at­ed pro­grams, giv­ing stu­dents flex­i­bil­i­ty based on their needs.
• It’s cru­cial to choose a pro­gram that is accred­it­ed to ensure the edu­ca­tion is rec­og­nized and val­ued in the busi­ness world.
• Grad­u­ates with an entre­pre­neur­ship degree can pur­sue var­i­ous ven­tures or roles in busi­ness management.

Entre­pre­neur­ship is one of the great­est expres­sions of indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty. The entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it is grow­ing and with good rea­son. These days, more and more peo­ple are see­ing the val­ue of work­ing for them­selves rather than work­ing for some­body else. How­ev­er, in spite of what pop cul­ture may tell you, big dreams and deter­mi­na­tion aren’t enough to get entre­pre­neurs where they want to go. Often, there is a gap between what an entre­pre­neur wants to do and what an entre­pre­neur knows how to do. This is where an entre­pre­neur­ship degree comes into play. In an entre­pre­neur­ship pro­gram, stu­dents can learn how busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion and busi­ness devel­op­ment works. They learn the prac­ti­cal, behind-the-scenes infor­ma­tion that can give their big plans a sol­id foun­da­tion in real knowledge.

Still, the idea of an entre­pre­neur­ship degree is fair­ly new. As a result, you may have a lot of ques­tions about get­ting an entre­pre­neur­ship degree and whether or not it is a worth­while choice for you. What can you do with an entre­pre­neur­ship degree? Is an entre­pre­neur­ship degree worth it? For that mat­ter, what is an entre­pre­neur­ship degree? 

Well, an entre­pre­neur­ship degree is, essen­tial­ly, exact­ly what it sounds like. This degree helps aspir­ing small busi­ness own­ers and man­agers fig­ure out how to turn their goals into mea­sur­able, sus­tain­able plans. Have you ever asked your­self “What can I do with an entre­pre­neur­ship degree?” In that case, read on to see the infor­ma­tion in the para­graphs below. The infor­ma­tion in this arti­cle con­tains answers to some of the most com­mon ques­tions about entre­pre­neur­ship degrees.

Accreditation for Entrepreneurship Programs

To get an entre­pre­neur­ship degree, the first thing that you’ll have to do is find the right school. Sev­er­al schools have excel­lent entre­pre­neur­ship pro­grams, and many more schools have excel­lent gen­er­al busi­ness degrees. 

For those who are con­sid­er­ing an entre­pre­neur­ship degree, the most impor­tant thing to under­stand is how to find an accred­it­ed school. When it comes to any col­lege degree, accred­i­ta­tion mat­ters above most oth­er things. Why? Because when a school is accred­it­ed, that accred­i­ta­tion lets stu­dents know that they are get­ting a rel­e­vant and worth­while edu­ca­tion. You can even find accred­it­ed online entre­pre­neur­ship degree options. 

No accred­i­ta­tion means no over­sight. In oth­er words, with­out accred­i­ta­tion, there is noth­ing telling stu­dents that their edu­ca­tion is pro­vid­ing the infor­ma­tion that they need. In a non-accred­it­ed pro­gram, you run the risk of study­ing for 4 years only to find out that the infor­ma­tion that you learned is outdated. 

For that mat­ter, non-accred­it­ed class­es are not trans­fer­able to an accred­it­ed school. Say, for exam­ple, that you spend a year in a non-accred­it­ed busi­ness pro­gram. After a year, you decide to trans­fer to an accred­it­ed school. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the class­es that you have already tak­en will not count toward your new degree. You will be forced to start from the begin­ning. Don’t take that risk. Instead, look for accred­i­ta­tion right away. When you start your job search, you’ll be glad that you did.

Now, how does one make sure that they are get­ting an edu­ca­tion from an accred­it­ed school? It’s fair­ly sim­ple. They sim­ply have to look for region­al accred­i­ta­tion. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, accred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ties will proud­ly dis­play their accred­i­ta­tion infor­ma­tion some­where on their web pages. If you are inter­est­ed in a par­tic­u­lar school or pro­gram, search the web­site for the word “accred­i­ta­tion”. Anoth­er thing that you can do is look for that school’s region’s spe­cif­ic accred­it­ing orga­ni­za­tion. Each region in the Unit­ed States has its own col­le­giate accred­it­ing body. In oth­er words, a uni­ver­si­ty in Cal­i­for­nia will not be accred­it­ed by the same orga­ni­za­tion as a uni­ver­si­ty in New York. How­ev­er, both uni­ver­si­ties, if accred­it­ed, are worth­while and rel­e­vant places to learn. If inter­est­ed in a par­tic­u­lar school, look up the accred­it­ing orga­ni­za­tion for the region where that school is locat­ed. You can search the school’s name on the accred­it­ing organization’s web­site. This is a great way to ver­i­fy infor­ma­tion and make sure that you are get­ting cred­i­ble results.

Aside from accred­i­ta­tion for the school itself, you might also look for accred­i­ta­tion for the spe­cif­ic entre­pre­neur­ship degree pro­gram. You’ll know that a pro­gram is espe­cial­ly worth­while if it has been accred­it­ed by the AACSB . The AACSB stands for The Asso­ci­a­tion to Advance Col­le­giate Schools of Busi­ness. The Asso­ci­a­tion looks specif­i­cal­ly at busi­ness schools to make sure that they are teach­ing stu­dents well. 

Types of Entrepreneurship Bachelor’s Degrees

How do you become an entre­pre­neur? Offi­cial­ly, there are no entre­pre­neur require­ments in edu­ca­tion. In oth­er words, there is no law that states that an entre­pre­neur must have a spe­cif­ic type of degree. How­ev­er, the edu­ca­tion of an entre­pre­neur can make a big dif­fer­ence in the suc­cess of this person’s busi­ness. So, what does the edu­ca­tion of an entre­pre­neur look like? What degrees do you need to be an entre­pre­neur? Well, a per­son who wants to study to be an entre­pre­neur can actu­al­ly take sev­er­al path­ways in high­er edu­ca­tion. As you may have guessed, this means that the “How do I become an entre­pre­neur?” ques­tion doesn’t have one sim­ple answer. On the neg­a­tive side, this means that there is no clear-cut path to entre­pre­neur­ship. On the pos­i­tive side, how­ev­er, this also means that future entre­pre­neurs have a lot of edu­ca­tion­al choices.

First, to study to be an entre­pre­neur, one can actu­al­ly seek out an Entre­pre­neur­ship degree. In oth­er words, by grad­u­a­tion, this person’s degree will have the word “entre­pre­neur­ship” on it. This type of degree cov­ers the basics of busi­ness, includ­ing finan­cial infor­ma­tion and busi­ness legal­i­ties. You’re learn entre­pre­neur­ial skills like design­ing busi­ness plans, using social media mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, mar­ket research, pub­lic rela­tions, and more. These degrees are specif­i­cal­ly designed to cov­er the edu­ca­tion need­ed for entre­pre­neurs. Entre­pre­neur­ship degree careers include any careers that involve a per­son start­ing their own business.

How­ev­er, oth­er full-time degrees can meet the edu­ca­tion require­ments for entre­pre­neurs. A gen­er­al busi­ness degree, for exam­ple, can get poten­tial entre­pre­neurs where they need to go. On a gen­er­al lev­el, a busi­ness degree teach­es how busi­ness works. This is impor­tant infor­ma­tion for future entre­pre­neurs to know. With­in a busi­ness degree, a per­son can also seek out cer­tain spe­cial­iza­tions. There is the entre­pre­neur­ship spe­cial­iza­tion, of course. One can also major in Busi­ness Man­age­ment. With this degree, a per­son learns how to sharp­en their lead­er­ship skills, which is very impor­tant for those who want to start up their own busi­ness­es. The major in finance can be quite help­ful for cre­ative types who have a lot of busi­ness ideas but want to get bet­ter at the nuts and bolts of start­ing a business.

Keep in mind that if one wants a degree in entre­pre­neur­ship, online options exist as well. An online degree in entre­pre­neur­ship can serve a future busi­ness own­er just as well as an on-cam­pus degree can. An online degree in entre­pre­neur­ship would come with all of the same class­es and mate­ri­als that its on-cam­pus coun­ter­part would pro­vide. The dif­fer­ence is that online entre­pre­neur­ship degrees exist vir­tu­al­ly. Stu­dents may log in to their class­es, par­tic­i­pate in online dis­cus­sions, and have email con­ver­sa­tions with their professors. 

When con­sid­er­ing online entre­pre­neur­ship degrees, you should think about the same con­sid­er­a­tions that you would think about when choos­ing an on-cam­pus pro­gram. Specif­i­cal­ly, make sure that your online entre­pre­neur­ship degree is accred­it­ed. An online entre­pre­neur­ship degree can make a great choice, but only if that degree pro­vides up-to-date infor­ma­tion and enough aca­d­e­m­ic chal­lenge to be worth­while. Many accred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ties that also offer on-cam­pus cours­es have options for entre­pre­neur­ship degrees online, and these uni­ver­si­ties make great places to start.

While search­ing for entre­pre­neur­ship degrees online, you might also con­sid­er a hybrid pro­gram. These pro­grams have a com­bi­na­tion of online and in-per­son class­es. Get­ting a degree in entre­pre­neur­ship online requires a fair amount of inter­nal­ized struc­ture and self-moti­va­tion. How­ev­er, so does start­ing one’s own busi­ness. There­fore, a person’s abil­i­ty to earn an online entre­pre­neur­ship degree can be a great mea­sur­ing stick to see whether or not a per­son is cut out for the busi­ness lead­er­ship world.

Final­ly, you might also look for accel­er­at­ed pro­grams. Accel­er­at­ed Busi­ness and Entre­pre­neur­ship pro­grams exist both online and offline. What sets an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram apart from a reg­u­lar pro­gram? Well, as you may have guessed, an accel­er­at­ed degree takes less time to earn. As a mat­ter of fact, some peo­ple can earn their accel­er­at­ed degrees in half the time that it takes to earn a reg­u­lar degree.

Now, you will have to keep in mind that earn­ing an accel­er­at­ed degree, espe­cial­ly in a chal­leng­ing sub­ject like busi­ness, can be espe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult. When con­sid­er­ing this option, be hon­est with your­self and make sure that you are up to the chal­lenge. Those with already busy lifestyles may do best to con­sid­er a part-time pro­gram. Just because a pro­gram is accel­er­at­ed does not mean that it includes few­er class­es. On the con­trary, accel­er­at­ed degree pro­grams have just as many cours­es as reg­u­lar degree pro­grams. The only dif­fer­ence is that stu­dents have less time to fin­ish them. 

All of that said, accel­er­at­ed degree pro­grams are often an appeal­ing choice for future entre­pre­neurs who are strug­gling to decide whether they should start their busi­ness­es right away or earn a degree first. An accel­er­at­ed degree pro­gram can pro­vide the mid­dle ground that they need to gain prac­ti­cal insight into the busi­ness world while still mov­ing quickly. 

Aspir­ing entre­pre­neurs may ben­e­fit from intern­ships with a suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur, learn­ing to run their own com­pa­ny, busi­ness venture,

Certifications in Entrepreneurship

What about cer­tifi­cates in entre­pre­neur­ship? Could you look into entre­pre­neur­ship cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­grams? Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is an option for future entre­pre­neurs who want to learn about busi­ness but still want to dive into that busi­ness quick­ly. Like an accel­er­at­ed bachelor’s degree pro­gram, a cer­tifi­cate takes about half the time to earn. Unlike a bachelor’s degree, how­ev­er, a cer­tifi­cate pro­gram includes few­er sub­jects. As stat­ed above, there is no law that says one needs a busi­ness degree to start a busi­ness. Cer­tifi­cates in Entre­pre­neur­ship pro­vide a great option for those who want to learn more about entre­pre­neur­ship but don’t want a full degree. 

Entre­pre­neur­ship cer­tifi­cates more or less cov­er the same top­ics that a full degree would cov­er. Unlike busi­ness bachelor’s degrees, Entre­pre­neur­ship cer­tifi­cates don’t come with core require­ments that aren’t strict­ly relat­ed to the major. In oth­er words, one can earn a cer­tifi­cate for entre­pre­neur­ship and only take busi­ness-relat­ed classes.

As a result, earn­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Entre­pre­neur­ship does not take as long as earn­ing a bachelor’s degree for Entre­pre­neur­ship. On the one hand, hav­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with­out a bachelor’s degree can some­times lim­it a person’s employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. Some jobs sim­ply require a full degree. How­ev­er, a per­son does not nec­es­sar­i­ly need a full degree to start one’s own busi­ness. A cer­tifi­cate for entre­pre­neur­ship, tak­ing less time to earn, can get the new entre­pre­neur on their feet faster than a bachelor’s degree could.

Fur­ther­more, a cer­tifi­cate in entre­pre­neur­ship will cost less than a full bachelor’s degree. Some stu­dents choose to earn that cer­tifi­cate in Entre­pre­neur­ship first and then pur­sue a full bachelor’s degree once they have saved up some more mon­ey. Oth­ers choose to earn their cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in Entre­pre­neur­ship while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly pur­su­ing a more gen­er­al bachelor’s degree. For exam­ple, some busi­ness majors take this route.

When look­ing into entre­pre­neur­ship cer­tifi­cate pro­grams, you may find a lot of online entre­pre­neur­ship cours­es with cer­tifi­cates. The best online Entre­pre­neur­ship cer­tifi­cate pro­grams, just like any oth­er pro­gram, will have accreditation.

What Can You Do With a Degree in Entrepreneurship?

Some peo­ple hes­i­tate to pur­sue a degree in entre­pre­neur­ship because they wor­ry about going to all the trou­ble to earn a degree if they do not ulti­mate­ly end up start­ing their own busi­ness. Imag­ine, for exam­ple, that you change your mind about start­ing your own busi­ness after grad­u­a­tion. Maybe you ulti­mate­ly find a career path that works bet­ter for your needs and lifestyle. What hap­pens then? Does that mean that you have wast­ed the time spent earn­ing your degree? Thank­ful­ly, it does not. An Entre­pre­neur­ship degree comes with skills that you can trans­fer to all kinds of oth­er busi­ness options, and recruiters appre­ci­ate that.

With a bach­e­lor of sci­ence in entre­pre­neur­ship, you devel­op the com­pe­ten­cies of estab­lished busi­ness lead­ers. No need to start at entry-lev­el — your course­work will expose you to busi­ness mod­els that will help you start a new busi­ness, work in non­prof­it, or turn your prob­lem-solv­ing skills to be an oper­a­tions manager.

So, what jobs can you get with an entre­pre­neur­ship degree? Are there any such thing as entre­pre­neur­ship jobs? As a mat­ter of fact, a per­son can seek all kinds of jobs with an entre­pre­neur­ship degree. Most peo­ple with a bachelor’s degree in entre­pre­neur­ship sought that par­tic­u­lar degree because they want­ed to start their own busi­ness. How­ev­er, if the amount of peo­ple googling “jobs with a entre­pre­neur­ship degree” is any indi­ca­tion, a lot of peo­ple also want alter­nate options. After all, start­ing one’s own busi­ness is a risky endeav­or. Thank­ful­ly, when one has a degree in entre­pre­neur­ship, jobs do not come in short sup­ply. Jobs with an entre­pre­neur­ship degree include the options on the list below.

• Busi­ness man­ag­er. An Entre­pre­neur­ship major shows stu­dents the ins and outs of how busi­ness­es work. Even when those stu­dents do not end up start­ing their own busi­ness­es, this busi­ness knowl­edge can be a valu­able asset. That knowl­edge can help the stu­dents serve busi­ness­es as man­agers. For that mat­ter, entre­pre­neur­ship requires plen­ty of lead­er­ship skills, and Entre­pre­neur­ship degrees impart those skills. Those lead­er­ship skills do not only apply to entre­pre­neur­ship. If you learn entre­pre­neur­ship-relat­ed lead­er­ship skills while earn­ing your degree, you can absolute­ly apply those skills to a man­age­ment position. 
• Mar­keter. Entre­pre­neur­ship requires busi­ness knowl­edge and a fair amount of cre­ativ­i­ty. Both of those skills trans­late very well to the are­na of mar­ket­ing. As an entre­pre­neur, you would have to learn about mar­ket­ing either way. You would need to find out what it takes to get your mate­r­i­al in front of the right audi­ence. As a mar­keter, you would sim­ply con­cen­trate that knowl­edge on audi­ence con­nec­tion, SEO, and cre­at­ing the right con­tent. You could also man­age mar­ket­ing teams, anoth­er skill that can be learned in an entre­pre­neur­ship program.
• Sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive. For the same rea­sons, peo­ple with entre­pre­neur­ship majors can also do quite well as sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Because they know how busi­ness works and how to con­nect to peo­ple, their over­lap­ping skills make sales a viable choice.
• Busi­ness con­sul­tant. With an entre­pre­neur­ial degree, a per­son will know how to iden­ti­fy and fix com­mon busi­ness issues. If this per­son also has excel­lent peo­ple skills, they may find a job offer­ing advice to busi­ness own­ers. Plen­ty of busi­ness­es hire con­sul­tants so that they can make the best deci­sions for them­selves. Entre­pre­neurs and busi­ness con­sul­tants alike know how to exam­ine prob­lems from all angles so that they can come up with the best solutions. 

Oth­er career oppor­tu­ni­ties include human resources, sales man­ag­er, ven­ture cap­i­tal, real estate, and man­age­ment con­sul­tant. When a per­son has a degree in entre­pre­neur­ship, jobs can take plen­ty of excit­ing and cre­ative turns. The entre­pre­neur­ship degree jobs list­ed above are not the only entre­pre­neur­ship degree jobs in exis­tence. As a mat­ter of fact, with an entre­pre­neur­ship degree, you could poten­tial­ly take your life in all sorts of direc­tions. Entre­pre­neur­ship major jobs are var­ied. If the thought of strug­gling for entre­pre­neur major jobs in case you don’t start your own busi­ness is hold­ing you back„ rest assured that with some research and cre­ativ­i­ty, you will have options.

Entrepreneurship Salary

Next, there’s the ques­tion of Entre­pre­neur­ship degree salary. Unlike with many oth­er careers, entre­pre­neur­ship salaries are much hard­er to research. When it comes to get­ting a degree in Entre­pre­neur­ship, salary is not always straight­for­ward. If you imme­di­ate­ly start your own busi­ness, Entre­pre­neur­ship degree salary infor­ma­tion can get even more com­pli­cat­ed. The first year or so after start­ing your own busi­ness can be dif­fi­cult finan­cial­ly. Mak­ing mon­ey is tough when you are get­ting your busi­ness off the ground. Of course, a lot depends on the type of busi­ness that you decide to open. Fac­tors such as mar­ket­ing, sea­son­al­i­ty, start-up costs, and much more can mud­dy the waters of fig­ur­ing out your salary.

Of course, when it comes to the pro­fes­sions list­ed above, salary infor­ma­tion is a lot more straight­for­ward. Accord­ing to Payscale, a mid­dle-lev­el man­ag­er, for exam­ple, can make an aver­age of over $75,000 per year. Mar­ket­ing man­agers , mean­while, can make an aver­age of more than $134,000 per year. The aver­age sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive salary is near­ly $49,000 per year, and the aver­age busi­ness con­sul­tant salary is near­ly $74,000 per year. 

Professional Organizations in Entrepreneurship

Final­ly, con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty of join­ing pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions either before or after grad­u­a­tion. Entre­pre­neur lists sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions that those with an entre­pre­neur­ship degree might join after grad­u­a­tion. These orga­ni­za­tions include:

• Entre­pre­neurs’ Organization
• Young Entre­pre­neur Council
• Social Enter­prise Alliance
• Start­up Grind
• Edward Lowe Foundation
• Vistage
• Asso­ci­a­tion of Pri­vate Enter­prise Education 
• Unit­ed States Asso­ci­a­tion for Small Busi­ness And Entrepreneurship

As you can see, there are lots of orga­ni­za­tions that entre­pre­neurs can join. Why should you con­sid­er join­ing a pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion or two? When you get involved in an orga­ni­za­tion such as the ones list­ed above, you may notice a lot of career ben­e­fits. The net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties alone are often enough to make the mem­ber­ship fees worth it. Some­times, pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions also come with the oppor­tu­ni­ty for con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion cred­its. By join­ing a pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion, you may also get access to pri­vate job boards, sem­i­nars, pub­li­ca­tions, and oth­er resources that can help you take your career to new levels. 

All of that said, per­haps the biggest ben­e­fit from join­ing an entre­pre­neur orga­ni­za­tion is the chance to share ideas with fel­low entre­pre­neurs. If you’re con­sid­er­ing a degree in entre­pre­neur­ship, you are prob­a­bly the sort of per­son who has a lot of big ideas and wants to make those big ideas take shape. Often, the best way to make an idea come to life is to share that idea with oth­ers and get their input and exper­tise. Orga­ni­za­tions like the ones list­ed above often have mem­bers that range from brand new entre­pre­neurs to peo­ple who have been in the game for decades. As a stu­dent, you will get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from pro­fes­sors who know how the busi­ness world works. In orga­ni­za­tions like these, you get the chance to con­tin­ue your edu­ca­tion in a way. You can talk to peo­ple who have been entre­pre­neurs for a while and can offer advice based on their expe­ri­ence. Fur­ther­more, in the spir­it of net­work­ing, you can work along­side peo­ple who are also new to entre­pre­neur­ship. You and oth­er new entre­pre­neurs can bounce ideas off of one another. 

All in all, pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions pro­vide some great oppor­tu­ni­ties for entre­pre­neurs at all expe­ri­ence lev­els. As you research poten­tial uni­ver­si­ties to attend, you might also look into the pos­si­bil­i­ty of join­ing some orga­ni­za­tions. Hav­ing the right sup­port from the start can help you reach success.

Relat­ed Rankings: 

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Entrepreneurship

15 Best Online Bach­e­lor’s in Entrepreneurship

10 Fastest Online Bach­e­lor’s in Entrepreneurship

10 Most Afford­able Bach­e­lor’s in Entrepreneurship