Little data exist about college entrepreneurs, but, anecdotally, educators know that more students are opening businesses. Growing enrollment in entrepreneurial classes and applications for grant funding for student projects are among the indicators.

INTEREST GROWING

At Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative at Arizona State University, for example, 24 awards went to student projects in the past year, up from 16 two years ago, program manager Patrick Duran said.

Loui Olivas, who teaches an entrepreneurship class at the W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU, notes his class size nearly has doubled in two years. Now, enrollment is capped at 55. Students tell him about ventures they are starting in school or that they plan to work on after graduation.

"When you are young, strong and naive, it works to your advantage," he said.

Sometimes, family members help with inspiration.

Kimberly Cortese, 24, was inspired by her mother, who ran a hair studio for 10 years. "I watched how successful she was," Cortese said.

So, within weeks of graduating from ASU, she opened Aloosions Salon & Spa in Scottsdale.

Colleges and universities have noticed the interest in entrepreneurship courses. Nearly 2,100 of them offer at least a course in entrepreneurship, and 18 have devoted entire departments to the study, according to Kansas City, Mo.-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which researches entrepreneurial trends.

Entrepreneurship education caught Marie Wesslehoft's attention. Now president of MSDx LLC in Tucson, Wesslehoft got the push she needed to start her business with three partners while taking entrepreneurial courses at UA.

"We had some unbelievable mentors," said Wesslehoft, 52.

The program also gave her perspective she would not have gotten if she had tried to develop MSDx without the classroom experience.

EAGER TO LAUNCH

Peter Burns, who is developing Grand Canyon University's College of Entrepreneurship in Arizona, has seen students who are eager to learn how to start a business even while in school.

"The realities of life hit them upon graduation, so starting a (business) while as a student is far more appealing to those that have taken my courses," Burns said.

Sherry Hoskinson, director of the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship at UA, also sees that entrepreneurial ventures by students and recent graduates are growing.

"(Students) have more options today to start a business online," she said. That makes it more cost-effective.

More colleges are creating business-plan competitions, she said. That, too, encourages students to act on their ideas.

Kevin Williams, 29, and his partners recently took top prize at a competition by Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management located in Glendale, Ariz.

Now they are marketing an on-demand video interpretation system aimed at hospitals.

"I found that I had a deep-seated desire to create something that would be mine to build," he said.