Evaluation of a Summer Course in Entrepreneurship for Disadvantaged High School Students

Abstract

This paper overviews a pre-college entrepreneurial education program and examines its impact on entrepreneurial intention. The program, entitled the Think Like an Entrepreneur Summer Academy, aims at disadvantaged and underrepresented high school students and is developed by a public research university in the northeast USA. We analyzed the data from 154 graduates of the program and found a significant increase in entrepreneurial intention in the posttest compared to the pretest. The study adds to the literature on exploring and identifying the characteristics of pre-college entrepreneurial education interventions that help increase entrepreneurial intent and provides suggestions for future research, including comparing dropouts to graduates and exploring the interplay between entrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurial mindset.