How These Colleges Are Supporting Female Founders With Innovative Offerings

Female entrepreneurship is on the rise in a big way. In 2024, women launched 49 percent of all new ventures in the U.S., up from just 29 percent in 2019, according to a survey from HR software company Gusto. A 2025 Wells Fargo report found that women-owned businesses generate $3.3 trillion and employ 13 million people in the U.S. Even as the federal government attacks DEI programs in institutions that have long cultivated these founders, programs championing women entrepreneurs are forging ahead at colleges ranging from Boston’s Babson College and New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) to the University of Texas at Austin and Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).Established in 2000, Babson’s Frank & Eileen Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership was the first academic center at a top U.S. business school devoted to women founders. Its model rests on four pillars: a robust mentorship program, research from the Diana International Research Institute, accelerators such as the Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab and Black Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, and partnerships that extend Babson’s reach into communities nationwide.Alumnae have launched businesses that have won pitch competitions, raised seven-figure investments, and founded national platforms. Alumna Kristen Smith is the co-founder and chief experience officer of Tre’s Street Kitchen, which provides services ranging from school food and nutrition to mobile catering for emergency and disaster relief efforts. While in the Black Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, Smith secured five new food-service contracts and fulfilled an order of the company’s signature BBQ sauce to Amazon.For Frank & Eileen Center executive director Shakenna K. Williams, the center’s biggest impact lies in its community. “People want to feel like they belong to something strong, with not just mentorship, but sponsorship opportunities to elevate them in their careers,” she says. As DEI programs have come under attack, the center is expanding programs beyond the school’s campus and has doubled down on partnerships that support women founders across the U.S.An Inc.com Featured PresentationWhile Babson has long set the standard for women’s entrepreneurial leadership, other programs are also adapting to the new environment. At UT Austin, the Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute (KS WELI) helps women founders prepare for success in a state where DEI at public universities faces increasing scrutiny. Despite legislative restrictions on DEI initiatives at Texas’s public universities, KS WELI has maintained its results-driven focus. The program offers mentorship, funding guidance, and hands-on experience to help women founders build personal networks and secure investment.SCAD, meanwhile, is redefining “soft fields” as serious engines of growth. The Business of Beauty and Fragrance program, one of the first of its kind, prepares students to launch ventures in industries that shape culture as much as markets. Meloney Moore, dean of the De Sole School of Business Innovation at SCAD, says the gig economy has lowered the barrier to entry for early entrepreneurs as they blend corporate jobs and business ventures; students are increasingly arriving with entrepreneurial experience or ambitions.“Business education has traditionally been very narrow: strategy, accounting, marketing, finance, and that was it,” Moore says. In contrast, SCAD’s business education approach “considers industry-specific nuances, foundationally focus[ed] on design thinking, research, innovation, and collaboration to solve problems,” she says. “Today’s leaders are equally building in high-growth industries like beauty and luxury.”At the Fashion Institute of Technology, president Joyce F. Brown, the first Black and first female leader of the institution, has long championed women’s leadership in creative industries. The FIT Center for Innovation’s DTech Lab affords brand collaborations with the likes of Adidas and Uniqlo. Students participate in design competitions and industry-sponsored projects. With women accounting for more than 80 percent of its student body, FIT has become a natural incubator for women entrepreneurs and executives. “We ensure young women understand the power they have and the opportunity they bring,” Brown says.



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